Yemen Shuts the al-Houban Crossing as Fighting Closes on Taiz
Yemen’s internationally recognised government has closed the al-Houban crossing at Taiz, the main civilian link between Houthi-held territory and the government-held city, citing an attempted infiltration and a military build-up. Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili said the army carried out 257 “precision targeting operations” on Saturday and estimated at least 700 Houthi fighters killed and 170 vehicles destroyed. He gave no figure for government losses.
The crossing is the detail that will be felt. It was shut for nine years and reopened to civilians in 2024 on humanitarian grounds, and closing it again severs the ordinary traffic between al-Houban and Taiz city on which families and traders depend. The casualty claims around it should be read as claims: they come from one side, they are not independently verified, and the day before the same spokesman put the figure at 1,540 killed or wounded in 24 hours from nearly 500 operations. Saturday’s strikes were said to have hit Sanaa, Midi and Baqim and the front lines in al-Jawf, Marib, al-Bayda and Lahij, with the heaviest effort around Taiz. What is verifiable is the direction of the fighting: the 2022 truce collapsed in July, the Houthis swept across parts of western Yemen in mid-September and took Mocha and islands in Bab el-Mandeb, and residents have left the Samaa front in numbers not seen in more than a decade. A shell hit a residential area at Dhubab and killed a baby. Government forces have since taken the Samaa fort, south-east of Taiz. Watch the humanitarian traffic rather than the body counts.