Airstrike Near Yemen's Capital Sanaa Kills 25, Houthi Health Ministry Says

Airstrikes struck homes in a farming village near Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on Saturday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 30 others, most of them women and children, according to a spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry.

Anees Alasbahi told The Associated Press that the strikes hit al-Shariya, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) northeast of Sanaa in territory held by the Houthis. He accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out the attack. The AP said it could not independently verify the claim, and Saudi Arabia's Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alasbahi later told the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV channel that the toll had risen from an earlier figure of 22, and that civilians remained buried under the rubble of destroyed houses. He said follow-up strikes targeted emergency workers as they tried to pull survivors from the wreckage.

The reported attack follows another airstrike on Friday that killed at least 30 people at a market in southern Yemen, according to Houthi officials. The Houthis and Yemen's Saudi-backed military each blamed the other for that strike.

The violence marks a rapid worsening of Yemen's civil war after a yearslong truce collapsed over the summer. Fighting has escalated between the Iranian-backed Houthis, who control Sanaa and much of the north and west, and their Saudi-backed opponents based in the south and east. The conflict began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital and drove out the internationally recognized government, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to launch a yearslong air campaign that has drawn international criticism over civilian casualties.

The United Nations says the war has killed at least 150,000 people, with additional deaths from hunger and disease outbreaks. The renewed fighting has raised fears that Yemen could be pulled back into a prolonged conflict that has already produced one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.