Sanaa, Nov 3 — Fighting and strikes intensified along a volatile front stretching toward the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Tuesday, with casualties reported across the southern Lahj and southwestern Taiz provinces, according to military and Houthi media sources.
A military official with Yemen's government forces told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that two Houthi ballistic missiles struck a public market in the government-controlled Lahj on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding 10 others.
Meanwhile, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV said an airstrike hit a plastic footwear factory located north of Taiz city on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding eight others. The channel attributed the strike to Saudi warplanes and said civil defense teams were battling a fire at the site.
Also on Tuesday, al-Masirah reported two were killed, including a woman, and five others injured in an airstrike on Ash Shamayatayn district in southern Taiz, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The attacks came as fighting intensified along the Taiz-Lahj front, where Houthi forces have recently advanced through the mountainous Al-Maqatirah district in Taiz toward Tur al-Bahah, a government-held district on routes leading toward Aden.
Government forces, supported by the Saudi-led coalition, have been seeking to halt the Houthi advances as the conflict sharply escalates on multiple fronts, with intensified ground battles and airstrikes inside Yemen accompanied by Houthi missile and drone attacks on government-held areas and targets inside Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, the Houthi group on Tuesday denied carrying out any attacks against Saudi Arabia during the day, rejecting allegations that it had targeted the holy city of Mecca amid heightened cross-border tensions.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a statement on social media platform X that the group's forces "did not carry out any operation toward Saudi territory today."
Yemen has been mired in conflict since late 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government.