CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen have accused Saudi Arabia of launching an airstrike on a correctional facility in northern Yemen on Monday, killing at least seven people, including a child, and wounding seven others.
The attack on the Central Corrective Facility in al-Hazm, the strategic capital of northern Al-Jawf province near the Saudi border, marks a significant escalation in violence as fighting intensifies across multiple fronts between the Iran-backed Houthi movement and Saudi-backed government forces.
According to Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthi-administered health ministry, those killed and wounded included visitors and detaining personnel. The facility’s warden told the Houthi-aligned Al-Masirah news network that as many as 35 prisoners and a woman visiting her husband remained trapped beneath the collapsed structure's concrete slabs.
Footage broadcast by Al-Masirah showed emergency rescue teams picking through the smoldering, pulverized remains of the building, searching for survivors amidst clouds of dust and twisted rebar.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, military spokesperson for the Houthis, publicly blamed Saudi Arabia for the strike, accusing Riyadh of carrying out "massacres" across Jawf province and providing heavy weaponry to anti-Houthi forces.
"The ongoing Saudi aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered or unpunished," Saree warned in a broadcast statement. He further claimed that Houthi air defense units had shot down four Saudi reconnaissance drones over a 24-hour period, including one over Al-Bayda province.
The Saudi Arabian government and its ministry of media have not issued an official response or comment regarding the accusations.
The deadly strike occurs against the backdrop of renewed, widespread hostilities that have threatened to shatter the fragile peace established after a 2022 United Nations-brokered truce. In recent days, fierce ground battles have erupted across northern and central provinces—including Al-Jawf, Al-Bayda, Marib, and Taiz—as Houthi fighters and forces aligned with Yemen's internationally recognized government trade control of strategic territories.
Tensions have reached a fever pitch near the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where heavy clashes over coastal access have reportedly left over 300 combatants dead and displaced hundreds of families.
The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, issued a statement urging all parties to exercise maximum restraint and immediately cease military operations, warning that a return to full-scale warfare would carry "grave consequences for civilians" and derail political settlement efforts.
