Clashes in the Yemeni rebel heartland of Saada province have killed 40 rebel fighters, Saudi media said yesterday, while the rebels reported nine civilians among 22 dead in Saudi-led air strikes.

The rebels were killed in clashes over the past 24 hours with a pro-government alliance backed by Saudi Arabia, which controls several pockets of the province along the Saudi border, the kingdom's state-run Al-Ekhbariya television reported.

An official of the province's rebel-run health department said four children were among the nine civilians killed in air strikes over the past 24 hours.

The rebels' Al-Masirah television said a single strike on the province on Tuesday night killed nine people, four of them civilians.

The uptick in fighting came as Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir held talks on the conflicts in Yemen and Syria with his British, US and United Arab Emirates counterparts in Paris on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia and its allies have come under mounting international pressure over the humanitarian impact of their nearly three-year military intervention.

More than 9,200 people have been killed in Yemen since the intervention began, most of them civilians. More than three-quarters of Yemen's 29 million population are in need of humanitarian aid, with some 8.4 million at risk of famine.