Strikes on market in Taiz province, Yemen, kill at least 30; rival sides blame each other

At least 30 people were killed and eight wounded when three strikes hit the al-Hadara market in the al-Waziyah district of Taiz province, Yemen, on Friday morning, according to Houthi officials. The Houthi rebels’ health ministry told reporters the toll and said it would rank among the deadliest single civilian market attacks since fighting resumed with renewed intensity across western Yemen months ago.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the three strikes hit the market at around 7 a.m. local time and blamed Saudi warplanes, which he said had taken off from Khamis Mushait air base and cleared the area around 8 a.m. He offered no supporting evidence. The Saudi Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Yemen’s government forces gave a different account. Military spokesperson Colonel Majed al-Nazili said the Houthis had fired a ballistic missile into the crowded marketplace, calling it a war crime. Local authorities in Taiz acknowledged casualties but did not give a specific toll, and said no coalition warplanes had operated in al-Waziyah that morning. The Associated Press was unable to independently verify either account.

Video distributed by the Houthi-run Al-Masirah channel showed heavy smoke over the market site, collapsed storage structures stocked with canned goods, overturned produce crates, and vehicles buried beneath broken concrete and rubble. How many vendors and shoppers were inside at the moment of impact was not immediately known. The source notes that Friday is a heavy day for open-air markets across much of the Arab world, which draw large crowds after midday prayers.

Taiz has been one of the conflict’s most contested areas. The Houthis hold much of the surrounding governorate, while the provincial capital, which houses the internationally recognized government’s headquarters and armed forces, remains under government control. Rebel-controlled roads encircle the city and have restricted the flow of food, medicine, fuel and clean water to its population for months.

The market strike follows earlier mass-casualty incidents that the source cites. In October, Houthi forces launched three ballistic missiles at the al-Alam training camp in Shabwa province, killing at least 73 newly recruited security personnel and wounding more than 200 others, according to the report; the rebels acknowledged that attack. In early September, Houthi officials accused Saudi Arabia of striking the Central Corrective Facility in al-Hazm, where the confirmed death toll reached 23 with seven detainees still unaccounted for.

The United Nations has repeatedly described Taiz’s civilian population as among the most acutely vulnerable in Yemen, warning that the breakdown of food, water and medical supply chains threatens hundreds of thousands of people caught in the fighting’s crossfire, a concern the source says the Friday strike has deepened. Civilians in such places rely on others to defend them, a reminder of the call to protect the vulnerable (Psalm 82:3).

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