Fighting rages in Yemen’s Taiz as UN warns nearly 260,000 now displaced

Yemen’s government forces launched hundreds of strikes on Houthi locations, a spokesperson says.

People inspect damage at a house reportedly hit by a Houthi missile in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen, October 21, 2026 [Ebrahim al-Suhaibi/Reuters]

Fighting has intensified in Yemen’s Taiz province between forces loyal to the country’s internationally recognised government and the Houthis, as the United Nations warns that thousands of civilians are being uprooted.

Government forces spokesperson Majid al-Nazili said on Wednesday that they launched 835 targeting operations against the Houthis, known as Ansar Allah, killing or injuring 285 of the armed group’s members and destroying its battle tanks and weapons stores.

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He said intense clashes also took place in the strategic highlands of Jabal Han in western Taiz, which overlook areas connecting the province to the Yemeni government’s Aden base. Heavy fighting was reported in the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts.

A source in the Yemeni government’s military told Al Jazeera that its air raids had struck Houthi gatherings and infrastructure in the Maafar directorate, south of Taiz.

As fighting rages between the Saudi Arabia-backed government forces and the Iran-aligned Houthis, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said almost 260,000 people have been displaced since August. About half of them have taken refuge in Taiz, where fighting is now concentrated, the agency said.

In report released late on Wednesday, OCHA said the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has verified 251 civilian casualties, including 57 people killed and 194 injured. Half of those killed were children.

“Despite extremely difficult conditions,” humanitarian partners have reached more than 174,000 displaced people since August, “nearly six in 10 displaced households,” providing food, hygiene kits and emergency cash in the first days after they were uprooted, OCHA said.

“Newly displaced families say that their most pressing need is shelter, followed by food and cash,” OCHA said.

Yemen’s Ministry of Education earlier announced that more than 2.5 million children are out of school because of the conflict.

The latest reports come as Yemen’s government forces press on with their “Dawn of Yemen” counteroffensive launched earlier this month to recapture Houthi-held areas, including the capital, Sanaa, with support from the Saudi-led coalition.

The operation followed the Houthis’ declaration of a blockade on Saudi Arabia in the crucial Bab al-Mandeb strait in July, as well as lightning offensives that saw the group swiftly seize strategic areas along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

The Houthis have also launched attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia, striking the kingdom’s airports in what analysts say is a pressure campaign to force a political resolution. Houthi forces say the strikes are in retaliation for Saudi Arabia’s longstanding restrictions on Houthi-controlled airports and seaports, including Sanaa airport.

Saudi Arabia’s Authority of Civil Aviation said on Thursday that the death toll has risen to two following a Houthi strike on the King Fahd airport in Dammam on Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, the US State Department said on Wednesday that it ordered non-essential staff and family members at its embassy in Riyadh to leave the country, raising fears of further escalation.

The embassy was already badly damaged at the onset of the US-Israel war on Iran and had been operating on a lean rota of staff, although some had recently returned.

In a new travel alert, the State Department warned Americans that “the hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area”.

In Yemen, government forces accused the Houthis of striking the Aden and al-Rayyan airports on Wednesday. The head of the governing Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, condemned the strikes and called on the international community to proscribe the group as a “terrorist” organisation.

Yemen has been engulfed in conflict since the Houthis seized Sanaa and several other provinces in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government.

A 2022 UN-brokered truce collapsed in July, as the Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi ports.

The Houthis control much of northern and western Yemen, while government forces and their allies hold Aden and large parts of the country’s southern and eastern provinces.

一位发言人称，也门政府军对胡塞武装目标发动了数百次空袭。

2026年10月21日，在也门西南部城市塔伊兹，人们正在查看据称被胡塞武装导弹击中的房屋的受损情况。[Ebrahim al-Suhaibi/路透社]

也门塔伊兹省的战斗愈演愈烈，一方是效忠于该国国际公认政府的部队，另一方是胡塞武装。联合国警告称，数千名平民正流离失所。

政府军发言人马吉德·纳齐利周三表示，他们对胡塞武装（又称安萨尔真主）发动了 835 次打击行动，造成该武装组织 285 名成员伤亡，并摧毁了其坦克和武器库。

也门政府指责胡塞武装袭击亚丁和穆卡拉机场（共4条，第1条）

美国以胡塞武装威胁为由，下令人员撤离沙特阿拉伯（共4项命令中的第2项）

从一战到胡塞武装：英国向沙特阿拉伯提供喷气式飞机，巩固了长期的军事关系（列表 3/4）

列表 4（共 4 项）饼干和武器：也门塔伊兹的妇女们想方设法帮助保卫这座城市

他表示，在塔伊兹省西部具有战略意义的杰巴尔汉高地也发生了激烈冲突，该地区俯瞰着连接该省与也门政府亚丁基地的地带。据报道，杜巴布和马斯拉赫地区也爆发了激烈战斗。

也门政府军方的一名消息人士告诉半岛电视台，其空袭袭击了塔伊兹以南马法尔省的胡塞武装集结地和基础设施。

联合国人道主义事务协调厅（OCHA）表示，自8月以来，沙特阿拉伯支持的政府军与伊朗支持的胡塞武装之间的战斗持续不断，已有近26万人流离失所。该机构称，其中约一半人已在塔伊兹避难，那里目前是战斗的集中地。

联合国人道事务协调厅（OCHA）周三晚间发布的报告称，已核实251名平民伤亡，其中57人死亡，194人受伤。死者中有一半是儿童。

联合国人道事务协调厅表示，“尽管条件极其困难”，但自 8 月以来，人道主义合作伙伴已向超过 17.4 万名流离失所者提供了援助，“几乎占流离失所家庭总数的 60%”，并在他们流离失所后的最初几天提供了食物、卫生用品包和紧急现金。

“新近流离失所的家庭表示，他们最迫切的需求是住所，其次是食物和现金，”联合国人道事务协调厅表示。

也门教育部此前宣布，由于冲突，超过250万儿童失学。

最新报道出炉之际，也门政府军正继续推进本月早些时候发起的“也门黎明”反攻，以夺回胡塞武装控制的地区，包括首都萨那，并得到了沙特领导的联军的支持。

此次行动是在胡塞武装于 7 月宣布封锁沙特阿拉伯在关键的曼德海峡，以及发动闪电攻势迅速占领也门红海沿岸战略要地之后进行的。

胡塞武装还对沙特阿拉伯境内的目标发动袭击，包括袭击该国机场。分析人士称，此举旨在施压，迫使沙特方面寻求政治解决方案。胡塞武装则表示，此次袭击是对沙特阿拉伯长期以来限制胡塞武装控制的机场和港口（包括萨那机场）的报复。

沙特阿拉伯民航局周四表示，胡塞武装周三晚间袭击达曼的法赫德国王机场后，死亡人数已上升至两人。

与此同时，美国国务院周三表示，已下令其驻利雅得大使馆的非必要工作人员及其家属离开该国，这引发了人们对局势进一步升级的担忧。

在美以对伊朗发动战争之初，大使馆就已经遭到严重破坏，而且一直依靠精简的人员轮班维持运转，尽管最近有一些人员已经返回。

美国国务院发布新的旅行警示，警告美国公民“敌对行动有可能迅速升级，蔓延到该区域之外”。

在也门，政府军指责胡塞武装周三袭击了亚丁和赖扬机场。执政的总统领导委员会主席拉沙德·阿利米谴责了此次袭击，并呼吁国际社会将该组织列为“恐怖组织”。

自 2014 年胡塞武装占领萨那和其他几个省份以来，也门一直深陷冲突之中，这促使以沙特阿拉伯为首的联军于 2015 年 3 月介入，以支持国际社会承认的也门政府。

2022年由联合国斡旋达成的停火协议于7月破裂，胡塞武装宣布封锁沙特阿拉伯港口。

胡塞武装控制着也门北部和西部的大部分地区，而政府军及其盟友则控制着亚丁以及该国南部和东部省份的大部分地区。