Yemen hits 'sensitive' Saudi sites, vows more 'painful' retaliation

Yemen's army has warned Saudi Arabia it will respond with strength after the kingdom launched a "large-scale" assault on the impoverished nation.

"We promise the Saudi regime painful operations as long as it continues its aggression and crimes," said armed forces spokesman Yahya Sare’e on Saturday. 

He said the Yemeni army had struck important and sensitive sites in the Saudi port city of Jizan with modern precision-guided missiles in retaliation.

The retaliatory attack follows intensified Saudi airstrikes against Yemen in the past few days.  

Yemeni officials condemned Saudi airstrikes on hospitals and medical centers in the capital Sana’a as “war crimes”, calling on international organizations to intervene and stop them. 

Spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Administration and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Talat al-Sharjabi said that the Saudi aerial attacks, which deliberately target medical facilities, constitute war crimes and are meant to increase the suffering of the Yemeni nation.”

“As the Saudi-led coalition intensifies its attacks on Sana’a, we have complained to international institutions about the decrease in delivery of humanitarian aid to poor people and Yemeni hospitals,” he said.

UN cuts food aid to Yemen due to lack of funds

The World Food Programme (WFP) says it will reduce food rations for 8 million Yemenis from January.

Director General of the Public Health and Population Office in Sana’a Dr. Mutahar al-Marwani said the Saudi airstrikes on hospitals are a deliberate attempt to put pressure on the Yemeni health sector, which is currently suffering from the devastating Saudi war and brutal siege.

He said all medical diagnostic imaging centers are closed down in Sana’a, and thousands of patients have been adversely affected as a result.

Early on Friday, Saudi warplanes targeted an area close to al-Alia Medical Center in the Yemeni capital, severely damaging nearby buildings.

A medical source, who preferred not to be named, told Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the strikes had caused panic and fear among patients and medical staff.

The Saudi strikes, the source added, had put the medical center out of service.

Three Yemeni civilians killed in new airstrikes

On Saturday, Saudi warplanes carried out a fresh wave of airstrikes against various areas across Yemen, killing at least three civilians.

They struck a facility belonging to the Public Telecommunications Corporation in the western province of Mahwit Saturday, leaving six others injured, al-Masirah TV reported.

Saudi fighter jets bomb residential areas, sports complex in Yemen’s Sana’a

Saudi warplanes attack the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a, targeting residential buildings and civilian facilities overnight.

Saudi military aircraft also targeted Mahazer area in the Sahar district of Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada, but there were no immediate reports about possible casualties and the extent of damage.

Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States and regional allies, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah resistance movement.

The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases there.

Despite Saudi Arabia’s incessant bombardment of the impoverished country, Yemeni armed forces have grown steadily in strength and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.

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