ADEN, Yemen: Pro-government forces supported by Gulf airstrikes have made key gains against Houthi rebels in Yemen’s third city Taiz, seen as a gateway to the capital, military sources said Sunday. The so-called Popular Resistance Committees, loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi, have seized several strategic locations in central Taiz, military officials said.

However, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and their allies still control entrances to Taiz, including its eastern gate to Sanaa, which has been under their control since September, as well as other parts of the city, the sources said.

The officials reported heavy fighting around the presidential palace in Taiz and the nearby central security forces’ camp – held by the rebels.

The number of casualties differed from one sources to another.

Security and hospital officials said 45 pro-Houthi fighters were killed and 30 wounded Sunday, while anti-rebel forces counted 36 dead and more than 27 wounded. At least eight civilians were killed and more than 20 wounded, they added.

Loyalist forces have retaken the intelligence headquarters and a fortress from which the rebels had been shelling Taiz, as well as the highest peak overlooking the city on Jabal Sabr, Sharaabi told AFP.

Saudi-led Gulf coalition warplanes, bombing rebel positions across Yemen since March, carried out several fresh airstrikes in Taiz early Sunday, witnesses said.

The latest advance on Taiz comes after loyalist forces made sweeping gains in south Yemen, starting with their recapture of main city Aden in mid-July.

Also Sunday, a powerful explosion hit a hospital in Yemen’s southern city of Aden, wounding three, setting off a fire and forcing the staff to evacuate patients, hospital and security officials said.

Doctors at the May 22 hospital in Mansoura district brought patients to a nearby mosque, while others lay on the ground in public squares, the officials said.

Meanwhile, Aden’s port authority said installations there were operational and ready to accept incoming ships. It added that more than a dozen ships carrying relief aid had docked there since Saudi-backed forces pushed rebels out of the city in July.

All officials spoke under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

Loyalists Friday retook several facilities from rebels in Taiz, including police and civil defense headquarters, according to the government’s Sabanew.net website.

In a telephone call, Hadi reassured the 35th Brigade’s commander in the city Thursday that “Taiz is on its way to being liberated and support will soon reach it.”

Military sources say the coalition has provided Hadi’s supporters with modern heavy equipment, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, as well as Yemeni soldiers trained in Saudi Arabia.

The conflict has cost nearly 4,300 lives since March, half of them civilians, according to U.N. figures, while 80 percent of Yemen’s 21 million people have been left in need of aid and protection.