Houthi rebels encircle Taiz, cutting most supply routes and straining hospitals

Houthi rebels have encircled the Yemeni city of Taiz and severed most supply routes from government-held areas, the New York Post reports, leaving the city’s more than 1 million residents facing dwindling food and fuel stocks. The Post says residents described shelling and blasts near homes as Houthi fighters clashed with Saudi-backed coalition troops on multiple fronts.

Medical officials in Taiz warned of immediate and severe strains on health services. Dr. Fahd Nazary of the Taiz provincial health office is quoted by the Post warning hospitals face a diesel shortage and a “huge catastrophe,” and the fighting has also cut off access to medical supplies, the article says.

Those shortages, the Post reports, threaten routine care as well as emergency treatment for people wounded in the clashes. Civilians have already been harmed in the fighting, according to local accounts cited by the Post.

Residents told the outlet that shelling and blasts occurred near their homes and that a 7-year-old boy was hospitalized after reportedly being hit by shrapnel. The Post recounts those reports as residents’ accounts without independent verification in its text.

The Post places the current encirclement in the city’s longer wartime experience, saying the development “harkens back” to the period from 2014 to 2022 when Taiz stood on the frontline of the civil war.

The article also reports that at least some clashes involved Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed coalition troops, citing officials for that description of combat on multiple fronts.

Local voices cited by the Post expressed fear that if the siege continues, food and fuel stocks will be exhausted; the outlet quotes a resident, Shaif al-Gabiri, saying those supplies would run out if the siege persists.

The New York Post frames the Houthis as advancing on the city and describes the group as having cut off most routes connecting Taiz to government-held areas, which the article identifies as the mechanism producing shortages.

Several other outlets ran headlines reporting that fear has gripped Taiz as Houthi rebels tightened a siege of the city, which corroborates that the event received wider attention, but the full on-the-ground details in this brief rely on the New York Post’s reporting and the local accounts and official comments it includes.