Yemen’s Houthis said on Friday (September 18, 2026) that Saudi Arabia had launched 26 strikes against areas under their control in the past 24 hours, as the pro-Iran group and Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government clash in the country’s revived civil war.

The group said that the number of Saudi strikes on its positions had reached 300 over the last week, saying they targeted areas across Houthi-held Yemen.

The war, which began in 2014 with the Houthi capture of the capital Sanaa, had been largely frozen since 2022 but erupted back into life in July.

Saudi Arabia has, since 2015, led a coalition backing the internationally recognised government. Its intervention escalated the war, which has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in the impoverished country.

This month, the Houthis, who already held most of Yemen’s populated areas, launched a lightning offensive to take over the country’s entire Red Sea coast, giving them control over the vital Bab al-Mandab strait.

The group, whose heartland is among the Zaidi Shia Muslims of northern Yemen, has declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, which had used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, itself closed by the West Asia war, for its oil exports.

Figures from maritime tracking firm Kpler showed that Saudi exports via the Bab al-Mandab Strait had dropped since July, although five loaded ships had passed through in the last week.

The Houthis insist that navigation of the strait is open and free except for Saudi vessels.

On Friday (September 18), the UN said that the renewed fighting had displaced more than 112,000 people while nearly 3,000 others had fled across the sea to Djibouti, heaping further misery on an already struggling population.

In 2025, the UN warned that 17 million people in Yemen were struggling to eat and a further million faced extreme hunger.

Saudi Arabia’s air defences destroyed a Houthi drone south of Mecca ‌before it entered prohibited airspace over the holy city, a spokesperson for ​the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said on Wednesday (September 16, 2026), as fighting spreads in ⁠West Asia.

The drone, intercepted on Tuesday evening (September 15, 2026), was the second Houthi attempt to target Mecca after a ballistic missile launch in July 2017, spokesperson Turki al-Malki said in a statement, and follows ‌a week of attacks from Iran-aligned Houthi fighters that have drawn Saudi Arabia deeper into the war.

Mecca is home to some of the ‌holiest sites in Islam and the focal point of the annual hajj pilgrimage, and ‌its ⁠security was a “red line”, the coalition spokesperson al-Malki said in the statement.

Houthi officials ⁠have denied targeting Mecca.

The attacks on Saudi Arabia have shocked global energy markets, roiled by the six-month U.S.-Iran war, which has slowed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to a trickle.

The Houthis have seized ​control of parts of Yemen’s Red ‌Sea coast in recent days, overlooking the Bab el-Mandeb, one of the world’s most important shipping straits, threatening Saudi Arabia’s oil exports rerouted from the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia issued security alerts for Mecca on Tuesday (September 15, 2026), but Houthi political bureau member Mohammed ‌al-Farah denied the group had targeted the city, calling the allegation “an outright lie” in ​comments carried by the Houthi-run SABA news agency.

The Houthis have announced several major attacks on Saudi Arabia over the past week, including ⁠attacks on an air base on Monday (September 14, 2026), which they said were in retaliation for airstrikes on Yemen. The air base attack wounded 13 civilians, Saudi-led military coalition officials said.

Saudi Arabia has ‌blamed a separate pro-Iranian movement, based in Iraq, for an attack on Friday (September 11, 2026) that knocked out one of the kingdom’s most important oil transport routes, the East-West Pipeline across the Arabian desert.

The 1,200-km (745-mile) East-West Pipeline linking Saudi Arabia’s Gulf oil fields to the Red Sea has been the kingdom’s principal export route, while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted by nearly seven months of war, which has killed thousands of ‌people across the region.

Since the pipeline was shut after Friday’s attack, traders say a prolonged closure could ​cut off as much as 4% of global oil supply.

Saudi Arabia has not said when operations might resume.

But U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright ⁠told CNBC on Tuesday (September 15, 2026) that crude oil should be flowing through the pipeline within days.

Saudi Arabia has ⁠led a coalition battling the Houthis since 2015. The conflict had largely quietened under a ceasefire in recent years but reignited when the Houthis pushed ‌back forces aligned with the Yemeni government this month.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman phoned U.S. President Donald Trump last week seeking military support, which so far ​has been limited to intelligence aid.