At least 30 troops from Yemen’s internationally recognised government were killed and around 50 others wounded after Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched coordinated attacks on military camps in the provinces of Marib and Hadramout, marking one of the deadliest escalations since the 2022 truce.Yemeni officials said the assaults targeted camps of government forces, while a Houthi leader claimed Saudi-backed troops were the intended targets and said “hundreds” were either killed or injured. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.Hours later, a separate series of Houthi attacks struck Saudi Arabia’s southern Najran region near the Yemeni border, injuring more than 10 civilians, including a four-year-old child, according to the Saudi military.Saudi military spokesperson Turki al-Malki said the attack wounded seven Saudi nationals, one Yemeni, two Egyptians and one Pakistani expatriate. The Houthis did not immediately issue a statement on the cross-border attack.The back-to-back attacks mark a major escalation in the conflict that had largely subsided following a UN-brokered truce in 2022. Yemen has been engulfed in civil war since 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention the following year.The escalation came as Iran said it was in the “final stage” of drafting an agreement with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global shipping route through which about one-fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas passed before the current conflict.Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said a joint statement would be issued “if certain parties do not obstruct this process,” in an apparent reference to the United States. The agreement is expected to depend on Washington lifting restrictions on Iran’s ports.Asked whether a deal had been reached to reopen the strategic waterway, US President Donald Trump declined to confirm negotiations.“It has been sort of open right now,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.According to maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence, at least two ships were struck in the Strait of Hormuz over the past week, while several others reported near misses or warnings from entities claiming to represent Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Vessel traffic increased to 84 transits during the week of July 27 to August 2, up from 45 the previous week, but remained well below the more than 700 weekly transits recorded before the crisis began.Elsewhere in the region, the Israeli military said two soldiers were killed and four others seriously wounded in an explosion in southern Lebanon, the first Israeli military fatalities since a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect in June. The incident came as Israeli and Lebanese negotiators met in Rome to discuss implementation of the truce.In Gaza, Uganda’s parliament approved the deployment of troops to a proposed International Stabilization Force, though the multinational mission has yet to be established.Meanwhile, Israeli prosecutors charged settler Yinon Levi with reckless manslaughter over the 2025 killing of Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in the occupied West Bank, a rare prosecution involving settler violence.In Iraq, the government announced that any armed activity outside state control after September 30 would be prosecuted under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law, amid growing pressure on Iran-backed militia groups to surrender their weapons.
