RIYADH, 26 December 2021, (TON): The Saudi-led coalition launched a "large-scale" assault on Yemen after a projectile killed two people in the kingdom, in the first such deaths in three years blamed on Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Yemeni medics said “a retaliatory coalition air strike on Yemen killed three people and wounded six others in Ajama, a town northwest of the Houthi held capital Sanaa.”

Yemen has been wracked by civil war since 2014 pitting the internationally recognised government supported by the Saudi-led military coalition against the Huthis who control much of the north.

Tens of thousands of people have since been killed, in what the UN has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Saudi's civil defence said that two people, one Saudi and the other Yemeni, were killed and seven others wounded in the projectile attack on Jazan, a southern region of the kingdom bordering Yemen.

It said in a statement "a military projectile fell on a commercial store on the main street, resulting in two deaths.”

It added that six Saudis and a Bangladeshi national were wounded.

The Saudi-led military coalition said shortly afterwards that it was "preparing for a large-scale military operation.”