Yemen war: Five civilians killed in coalition strike, say Houthis

Yemen's Houthi rebels said early on Monday that air strikes killed five civilians from one family in the northwestern province of Omran, according to the group's Al-Masirah TV.

The air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition targeted a mosque that the family went to at the time of the attack, the station said.

Searches under the rubble are ongoing for two of the family’s missing children, Al-Masirah reported.

The rebels on Friday offered to stop all their attacks on Saudi Arabia if the coalition does the same, but said if their proposal was ignored, they "would not hesitate to launch a period of great pain".

“I call on all parties from different sides of the war to engage seriously in genuine negotiations that can lead to a comprehensive national reconciliation that does not exclude anyone," the head of the Houthi political office Mahdi al-Mashat, said on Al-Masirah.

Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir, meanwhile, said on Saturday that the coalition will judge the seriousness of the proposal based on the rebels’ action.

“We will see whether they actually do this or no,” he said.

Still, the UN envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, said the Houthis’ initiative “could send a powerful message of the will to end the war” in Yemen.

The announcement by the Houthis comes on the heels of a strike on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities that initially halved the kingdom’s production, and was claimed by the rebels. The United States and Saudi Arabia have blamed Iran.