Supporters of Yemen’s Houthis hold up their rifles as they rally to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the ousting of the government in Sanaa, Yemen September 21, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

i24 News – A Saudi-led coalition on Saturday launched a “large-scale” assault on Yemen after a projectile killed two people in the kingdom, in the first such deaths in three years caused by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

On Friday, the Saudi-led coalition carried out an attack immediately after the assault on what it called “the attack’s origins.”

The Houthis warned Yemen’s oil-rich northern neighbor of a “painful” response if the coalition does not stop its “aggression.”

Civil war continues to plague Yemen, pitting the internationally recognized government supported by the Saudi-led military coalition against the Houthis who control much of the north.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, in what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The latest violence came overnight when a Saudi citizen and a Yemeni resident were killed as a result of a Houthi projectile that hit the southern Saudi city of Jazan on Friday, Saudi state media reported.

The projectile also left six Saudis and one Bengali resident injured.

Images from the official Saudi Press Agency purportedly of the aftermath of the attack showed a large crater in the ground and a number of destroyed vehicles.

The Saudi-led coalition later launched an airstrike in which “three civilians including a child and a woman were killed, and six others were wounded,” Yemeni medics told AFP.