Saudi airstrikes hit a government building and a civilian home in northern Yemen’s al-Jawf province on Monday, killing at least nine civilians, including five children, Yemeni media has reported.
Citing the Health Ministry within the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government, the SABA news agency reported that seven other people were injured in the attack and described the casualty figures as an initial toll. Footage from Al Masirah TV shows the aftermath of the strikes and some of the casualties, including children who were killed.
The Health Ministry said in a statement that the “direct targeting of government facilities and civilians constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and a crime added to the series of crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition against the people of Yemen.”
Other civilian casualties were reported in attacks in Yemen on Monday, including shelling by Saudi-backed forces that killed a child in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province. On Sunday night, Saudi airstrikes hit residential areas in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, damaging homes and injuring civilians.
The Saudi-led coalition was notorious for bombing civilians during the war in Yemen from 2015 to 2022, and the Saudi bombing campaign has followed the same pattern since Riyadh reignited the war by launching airstrikes against the Sanaa International Airport in July. The bombing campaign is backed by the US, which is providing intelligence and targeting data and has also resumed refueling Saudi warplanes.
According to the Yemen Data Project, at least 66 civilians were killed, and 90 were wounded by Saudi airstrikes in September, the heaviest month of Saudi airstrikes in the country since January 2022. The Health Ministry said Saturday that since September 3, when the war escalated following the start of an Ansar Allah ground offensive, 91 civilians have been killed and 168 have been injured.
Ansar Allah’s attacks on Saudi airports have also inflicted civilian casualties, with at least 14 civilians killed by strikes on the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh in recent days.
