The Houthis also released footage on Wednesday of the fighting in the Al-Jawf area, as well as a video purporting to show the downing of a fighter jet belonging to Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni government’s main backer.

“The First Division Emergency Forces are advancing on the Al-Labanat front and, God willing, will reach Houthi positions,” Waleed Al-Mahajeri, operations commander of the government’s Fifth Brigade, told an embedded AFP journalist on Tuesday.

He went on to claim that the “Houthi militias are retreating and fleeing across all fronts”.

AFP footage showed the soldiers firing heavy machine guns, artillery and RPGs at distant targets, as well as the bodies of Houthi fighters and entrenchments the government forces said the group had abandoned as they fell back.

“Al-Masariya Hill has been liberated, as has Al-Labanat camp, and the advance is continuing towards Al-Tebab al-Soud,” said soldier Abu Mithaq.

Yemen’s civil war roared back to life in July after lying mostly dormant since 2022, with the Houthis making rapid advances that saw them seize the entirety of the country’s Red Sea coast and strategic islands in the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the sea’s southern tip.

The group has long held large parts of the country’s north, including the capital Sanaa.

Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government have scrambled to respond to the new offensive, and Saudi airstrikes have failed to roll back the Houthis’ gains.

In their own video, Houthi fighters can be seen racing across the desert in pick-up trucks, at one point firing on an advancing vehicle.

“We are conducting now, God willing, an operation to… cut off the enemy,” one of the fighters can be heard saying.

A separate video issued by the group includes night-vision footage appearing to show a projectile striking a fighter jet.

Other scenes show the wreckage of a downed plane, with a charred tailfin bearing the Saudi flag.

The Houthis said on Wednesday that they had shot down a Saudi fighter jet using a locally made missile.

Earlier today, the Saudi-led coalition accused the Houthi rebels of targeting the holy city of Makkah, sparking outrage across the Muslim world and deepening the conflict roiling the region.

The Houthis swiftly rejected as a “lie” Riyadh’s report that it shot down a drone from the rebels heading towards Makkah, which attracts millions of pilgrims each year.

“The claims about targeting Makkah are a worn-out lie that has been used before and no longer fools anyone,” Hazem al-Assad from the Houthis’ politburo wrote on X.

According to information available, the Indian delegates repeatedly sought to intervene during Sadiq’s speech, with footage showing attempts to get hold of the microphone and disrupt the proceedings.

Sadiq had raised the issue of “water terrorism” during his address without naming any country, in the context of broader concerns over climate change, water resources and climate justice.

The Indian delegates’ attempts to seize the microphone affected the atmosphere of the session, prompting direct intervention by the host and the Jamaican speaker, who asked them either to remain silent or leave the hall. Meanwhile, other participants advised the Indian delegates to listen patiently to Speaker Sadiq’s address.

Despite the disruption, the discussion on climate adaptation and climate justice continued.

In his address, Speaker Sadiq, without naming any country or delegation, presented a principled position on tackling climate change and stressed the responsibilities of the international community.

He raised issues, including the sudden surge of water in rivers and the withholding of water, without naming any country.

Speaker Sadiq said climate adaptation policies should be formulated with effective public participation, adding that oversight by democratic institutions was indispensable to policies aimed at addressing climate change.

He added that climate change was affecting various spheres of life, including food, water and health, noting that Pakistan was among the countries most affected by climate change.

“Tackling climate change requires climate justice and the inclusion of democratic institutions,” he said, adding that parliamentary dialogue on global challenges such as climate change should be serious, purposeful and constructive.

He said the role of parliaments was important in the practical implementation of climate policies and that international climate finance should come under parliamentary oversight.

“The Parliament of Pakistan is playing an important role in climate adaptation through legislation, budgetary oversight and committees,” he said, adding that the inclusion of women, youth and other segments of society was indispensable to addressing climate change.

“To deal with climate risks, parliaments should benefit from mutual experiences,” he said, adding that to meet the challenges of climate change, parliaments should promote cooperation and meaningful dialogue rather than differences.

“Strong democratic institutions are indispensable for strong and vibrant societies,” Speaker Sadiq said, adding that climate adaptation could be effective only with fair financial assistance and democratic accountability.

The Indus Water Treaty (IWT) remains a contentious issue between Pakistan and India, following New Delhi’s unilateral abeyance of the accord in April last year — a move that was followed by a brief military conflict between the two sides in May 2025.

Following India’s move, Pakistan termed any attempt to suspend its water share an “act of war”, noting the IWT had no provision for unilateral suspension. It later argued that Delhi’s action was a violation of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

In August, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague also ordered India to uphold the IWT with Pakistan and suspend work on a hydro project in occupied Kashmir.

Talking to the media after a National Assembly panel meeting, the minister said work on regulations for virtual grids had already started and that the regulations would be finalised by the last quarter of the current fiscal year.

The minister said power distribution companies (Discos) had also been directed to install batteries on their grids as part of efforts to improve the power system and promote energy storage.

“A battery revolution is coming to Pakistan as the government seeks to promote battery use and introduce a virtual grid system,” he said.

“The government’s objective is to increase the use of batteries in the country’s power sector.”

Earlier, the minister faced a tough time at the NA Standing Committee on Power meeting as committee chairman Muhammad Idrees questioned him about prolonged electricity load-shedding in the country.

During the meeting, Leghari acknowledged that load-shedding was being carried out on around 3,500 of the country’s 14,500 feeders due to electricity theft and line losses.

“Within a year, the government will shift load-shedding from feeders to transformers so that an entire feeder will not have to be shut down,” he said, adding that the government was also introducing an on-off control system for around 190,000 transformers.

With the new system, he said, it would not be necessary to shut down an entire feeder, while consumers who regularly paid their electricity bills would not be affected.

He said there was currently no additional load-shedding in the country. “The outages are mainly occurring due to faults caused by overloading of the power system.”

Leghari said heavy investment was required to upgrade the power system and that approval from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) would be sought for the upgrades.

Regarding the energy situation, the minister said the closure of the Strait of Hormuz had affected the Petroleum Division’s ability to receive LNG cargoes. He said the government was using locally produced gas for power generation.

Explaining the decision to carry out load-shedding at night, Leghari asked, “Who will bear an additional electricity bill of Rs6 to Rs6.50 per unit?”

He said a gas cargo that previously cost around $30 million was now costing more than $95 million, making it necessary to take measures to reduce fuel costs.

“We carried out load-shedding during peak hours to save fuel costs,” the minister said.

He clarified that the government had not signed any new agreement with any independent power producer (IPP), adding that incorrect reports had appeared in the media on the matter.

During the meeting, PML-N MNA Rana Muhammad Hayat said there was a lot of discussion but electricity prices had not come down.

“There is so much load-shedding that it has become difficult for us to go among the people,” he said.

Hayat also criticised the performance of the Discos, but ended up blaming the policymakers and the ministry for the state of affairs in the power sector.

“What can the Discos do, minister sahab? You switch off the electricity,” he said.

The PML-N lawmaker said the government’s policies gave the impression that it was working primarily to meet the requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), rather than addressing people’s problems.

“Yes, I feel like we are working not for the country but only for the IMF,” he said. The minister, however, responded that Hayat was making an irresponsible statement at a responsible forum.