– Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday denounced a Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, which reportedly killed 12 people and injured more than 300, reaffirming Pakistan’s commitment to the kingdom’s security under the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement.

In a post on X, the prime minister said attacks targeting civilian and critical infrastructure were “completely unacceptable” and posed a serious threat to regional peace and stability.

He stressed that such acts of violence, which he described as a flagrant violation of international law, must stop immediately.

Reiterating Pakistan’s solidarity with Saudi Arabia, Shehbaz said Islamabad remained firmly committed to safeguarding the kingdom’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and security in line with the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement and the longstanding fraternal ties between the two countries.

On Saturday, an attack on Riyadh’s international airport killed at least 12 people and wounded 309 others, some of them seriously, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation officials said, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to vow on Sunday a decisive response against Yemen’s Houthis.

Four Saudi citizens were among the dead, as well as two Bangladeshis, one US citizen, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian and one Sudanese, the statement added.

The coalition blamed the group for the strike on King Khalid International Airport, describing it as a “full-fledged war crime” that a diplomatic source attributed to a missile.

Earlier in the day, authorities had suspended operations at Riyadh’s international airport. The Saudi civil aviation authority had initially confirmed an attack had injured several people at the sprawling King Khalid International Airport, with a diplomatic source attributing it to a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The situation prompted health officials to activate a rare mass call-up of doctors to deal with the “serious emergency”, a medical source said, while foreign embassies warned their citizens to avoid the facility.

Houthis have repeatedly targeted the facility, claiming a series of strikes on Thursday that killed three people and damaged a plane, though they did not announce any new attacks on Saturday.

Air traffic monitor Flightradar24 said 155 arriving and 161 departing flights had been cancelled, while a total of 222 flights were delayed.

At around 6pm local time, Flightradar24 noted that flights bound for the airport were “diverting elsewhere, mainly to Jeddah at the moment”. It later shared a notice to airmen (Notam) for operations suspended till 12am.

A witness at the airport reported hearing an explosion while waiting to board a flight, and another said they saw a strike that left people wounded and fleeing in panic.

“I was on gate 403” at the domestic terminal, the witness told AFP. “I saw 401 hit, I saw injured [people] in front of my eyes. Everyone was running.”

A medical source told AFP that the health ministry had ordered ER doctors to report to hospitals around the capital to treat the wounded on Saturday.

“We were told we are dealing with a ‘serious emergency situation’. Injured are being moved to hospitals across Riyadh”, with many in critical condition, the source said.

The aviation authority said the number of injured from the attack was still being assessed, adding that airport “operations had been temporarily suspended pending the completion of an assessment of the damage and verification of the safety of the facilities”.

The Houthis have repeatedly attacked Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers after a truce in their long-running war with Yemen’s coalition government unravelled in July.

A source at a local hospital said five people were in intensive care there after being wounded at the airport, with “dozens of people injured” in all.

A relative of one wounded person said they had been hit in the shoulders and arms by shattered glass. Three witnesses confirmed people being evacuated from the airport.

Two doctors told AFP that several pilgrims headed to Makkah had been injured while waiting to board their flight.

A diplomatic source briefed on the matter told AFP the airport was hit by “a missile around 3:00pm” (5pm PKT).