SAUDI-LED bombing of residential areas across Yemen’s capital Sanaa intensified today while missiles pummelled surrounding villages and the international airport.

At least three air raids targeted Sanaa international airport and missiles struck Attan village in Sanaa’s Bani Matar district, according to the al-Masirah television network.

War planes attacked the Jarban area in the Sanhan district of the capital. No immediate casualties were reported.

On Tuesday Yemen’s deputy foreign minister said that “ferocious air strikes” wiped out an entire family as at least 20 people were killed.

Medics said that the bombing raid in the Libby neighbourhood, the heaviest to hit the capital since 2019, killed a former army official, his wife, his 25-year-old son and other family members.

The Saudi-led coalition was said to have carried out more than 50 air raids on several areas across Yemen, including the central Marib province, in just 24 hours

The intensification of the bombings was a response to what Yemen’s Houthi movement described as retaliatory attacks on the United Arab Emirates in which three people were killed and six injured.

Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree said they had launched missiles “deep inside the UAE,” which was targeted due to its role in the war on Yemen.

“Operation Hurricane Yemen targeted the Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports, the Musaffah oil refinery in Abu Dhabi and a number of important and sensitive Emirati sites and facilities,” he said.

“The armed forces are implementing today what they promised and they renewed their warning to the coalition countries that they will receive more painful blows.”

He warned foreign nationals and companies to stay away from strategic sites and declared that “the UAE is an unsafe state as long as its aggressive escalation against Yemen continues.”