Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched a wave of missile and drone attacks across Yemen, killing at least 61 government soldiers over two days in what military officials describe as the deadliest escalation since a fragile United Nations-brokered truce was reached in 2022. The heaviest strikes targeted military camps in Marib and Hadramout provinces, killing at least 58 troops on Thursday alone, with dozens more wounded. Attacks continued into Friday, killing at least three more soldiers and two civilians in Marib, a strategically vital province in central Yemen. Houthi forces also struck civilian targets in the Saudi border region of Najran, wounding 11 people including a four-year-old child — the highest toll from a Houthi attack on Saudi soil in years.

The violence follows a rapid unravelling of the 2022 truce that had broadly held for nearly four years. Tensions reignited in mid-July after a Mahan Air flight carrying Houthi officials returning from the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was prevented from landing at Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport — an attack the rebels attributed to the Saudi-backed government. In response, the Houthis bombed Saudi Arabia's Abha airport, declared a maritime blockade of Saudi shipping, and began striking oil tankers in the Red Sea. Last month they also killed 16 soldiers in a separate attack near the port city of Hodeidah.

Analysts and military sources point to multiple overlapping motivations driving the current escalation. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree framed Thursday's strikes as a response to what he called a Saudi-backed military build-up near Marib and Hadramout. A source close to the Saudi-led coalition confirmed forces were mobilising, and warned that Marib — strategically significant both for its oil fields and its proximity to Houthi-held Sanaa — constituted a "red line." Researcher Mayssa Shujaa Al Din of the independent Sana'a Center notes that Iran has intensified weapons smuggling to the Houthis in recent months, allowing them to rebuild missile and drone capabilities lost in earlier strikes. Beyond military calculations, analysts say the Houthis are also seeking political and economic concessions from Riyadh, including resolution of unpaid civil servant salaries in rebel-controlled areas — a dispute unresolved since the 2022 truce.

Saudi Arabia, which has led a coalition of Arab states supporting Yemen's internationally recognised government since 2015, has signalled it will not accept a change in the balance of power but is not seeking outright escalation. Yemeni international relations researcher Sultan Batis argues Riyadh's primary concern is protecting its national security and its Vision 2030 economic development programme, and that it has no ideological objection to coexistence with the Houthis if firm security guarantees can be secured. In that context, he characterises the Houthi blockade as "extreme blackmail" — a pressure tool designed to extract concessions rather than a prelude to total war.

The renewed fighting has raised serious fears of a return to full-scale civil war in one of the world's most impoverished countries. The conflict, which erupted in 2014 when the Houthis seized Sanaa and prompted Saudi military intervention a year later, has already claimed more than 150,000 lives according to UN estimates, with vastly more deaths attributed to famine and disease. Both the Yemeni government and the Saudi-led coalition have warned of retaliatory measures, while the Houthis say they are prepared for further escalation. The broader context of US-Iran regional tensions adds another layer of uncertainty, with analysts cautioning that shifting pressures on Tehran could further destabilise the fragile equilibrium that has kept Yemen's war from reigniting at full force.