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Conflict Yemen · Saudi Arabia

Yemen war re-escalates

The Houthis are firing missiles and drones at Riyadh and Saudi oil sites, and say Saudi strikes near Sanaa killed dozens. Yemen's government says its forces have hit hundreds of Houthi targets.

Confidence: medium. Front-line and casualty claims come from the warring sides (Houthi-run media, the government's Defense Ministry, the coalition) and are unverified; the WSJ report on Saudi-Houthi contacts is denied by Riyadh. · Updated 11 Nov 2026, 2pm ET

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What's happening

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement launched an offensive in September 2026 that broke a 2022 UN-brokered truce, seized territory along the Red Sea coast and Bab al-Mandeb, and has besieged Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, since early October; Reuters describes it as opening a new front in the wider US-Israeli war with Iran. By November 2 Houthi forces were within about 80 km of Aden, according to Reuters, and The New Arab reported on November 4 that a Houthi missile strike on a training camp in al-Dhale governorate had killed more than 25 recruits. The UN-recognized government, whose counteroffensive began on October 5, has replaced ministers and officers and says it has retaken areas of Taiz province; the Houthis said on November 6 that airstrikes on a market there killed at least 20 people, while the government's Defense Ministry says a Houthi ballistic missile hit a market, killing and wounding dozens of civilians; the reports do not make clear whether these are the same incident. Houthi missiles hit Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport in October, killing more than a dozen people according to Saudi authorities and Reuters, and this week the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted Houthi missiles aimed at Najran and Medina. Saudi Arabia denies a Wall Street Journal report that the Houthis demanded $51 billion to halt hostilities, and a source close to the Houthis also disputed the report, according to The New Arab.

What changed recently

Key figures

more than 323,000People displaced in Yemen since the escalation began in AugustUN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), cited by Al Jazeera · 2026-11-06 · source
281 (69 killed, 212 injured), over a third of them childrenCivilian casualties recorded since AugustUN Human Rights Office, cited by Al Jazeera · 2026-11-07 · source
about 800,000People in Taiz cut off from supplies by the Houthi siegeAl Jazeera · 2026-11-07 · source

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