Saudi King Abdullah has reportedly signed a state decree rewarding families of the soldiers killed in raids on Houthi resistance fighters in Yemen.

The Saudi king’s latest directive requires the government to award a medal of honor and a sum of USD 266,000 to each family of soldiers killed in cross-border assaults against the Houthi fighters, IRNA reported.

The edict will also allow the recruitment of the immediate male relatives of every fallen soldier in the kingdom’s army.

The Saudis joined an assault on the Yemeni group on November 4 over allegations that Houthis killed a Saudi border patrol. The kingdom has pledged to assist the Yemeni government in uprooting the fighters through an intensified blitz and shelling.

Saudi Arabia’s move came after the Yemeni government launched its ‘Operation Scorched Earth’ to crush the Houthi resistance in the mountainous north.

The offensive has so far left thousands of civilians displaced and scores of others killed.

Three Saudi soldiers have been killed and an unidentified number of others wounded in an attack by Houthi fighters in the border area of Jebel Rumayh.

Houthi resistance fighters in Yemen say the casualties were inflicted on the Saudi forces in an operation following a heavy overnight air raid by Saudi aircrafts.

The Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat , however, reported that the soldiers died on Saturday in an attack by “infiltrators” in the Jebel Rumayh area.

The daily also claimed that Saudi forces “inflicted heavy losses in equipment and lives on the infiltrators.”

The resistance fighters however said in a Saturday statement that they had repelled two Saudi attacks inside the Yemeni territory.

“Today, two incursions into Yemen by the Saudi army were repulsed near the Jebel Rumayh region, and a number of aggressors were killed and others wounded,” the statement said.

The incursions came after Saudi Arabia carried out the heaviest aircraft and missile bombardments since its entry into the conflict, it said.

The aircrafts heavily bombarded the areas of Hidan, Razah, Shedah and Malahidhd.

Riyadh launched its offensive against the Houthi fighters more than two months after the Yemeni government launched its ‘Operation Scotched Earth’ to crush the Houhti resistance in the mountainous north.

The Saudis have said that the air strikes and shelling will continue until the fighters withdraw dozens of kilometers (miles) from the Saudi-Yemeni border.

The offensive has so far left thousands of civilians displaced from their homes and scores of others killed.

Saudi fighter jets have pounded the strongholds of Houthi combatants in northern Yemen as an earlier confrontation between Muslim fighters and Saudi security forces killed two Saudi security men.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam told The Associated Press that the Saudi offensive early Thursday struck at least four areas inside Yemeni territory using phosphorus bombs. There was no immediate word on the casualties.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the report from Riyadh or the Yemeni capital, Sana’a.

Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that two security officers were killed and 10 others were wounded after Houthi combatants seized control of the village of al-Khawbah at the Jizan region in a cross-border clash.

Saudi Arabia was allowing the Yemeni army to use the mountainous area to launch attacks against the Houthi resistance fighters. The raid was in response to Riyadh’s continued support of Yemeni armed forces in the conflict zone, the Houthis said.

The Yemeni government launched Operation ‘Scorched Earth’ on August 11 to uproot the Muslim Houthi fighters, whom Sana’a accuses of seeking a return to the ‘Zaidi imamate’ overthrown in a 1962 coup.

The northern combatants however say that they have suffered religious discrimination by the Yemeni government.

Saada and neighboring Amran provinces are encircled by fighters and frequently pounded by military fighter jets and helicopter gunships. The conflict zones in northern Yemen remain cut from the rest of the country, and are currently grappling with a pressing shortage of food and other basic supplies.

The United Nations puts the figure of displaced people in northern Yemen at around 150,000 civilians.