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 The ceasefire began at 11 p.m. (2000 GMT), said Brigadier General
Ahmed Asseri, spokesman for a Saudi-led coalition that has been
striking Yemen's Houthi rebels since March 26, but clashes persisted
after that in some areas.
It is intended to allow the shipment of food and medicine to the
country, which aid groups warn faces a humanitarian catastrophe
after more than seven weeks of war but it will end if the Houthis do
not also lay down arms, Riyadh has warned.
There was no let up in fighting before the truce.
The Houthis shelled Saudi border areas in Jizan province until the
last moments before the ceasefire started, Asseri said on al-Arabiya
television, adding that this gave him no confidence the rebel group
intended to keep to the truce.
Witnesses said as the ceasefire neared the Saudi-led alliance bombed
Houthi positions in the southern port of Aden, where local armed
groups were still fighting the rebels.
After the ceasefire formally began, fighting continued in al-Dhala
and Marib provinces in southern and eastern Yemen, said residents
and tribal sources. The sound of shelling continued until morning in
the city of Taiz, residents said.
 The United States said it was tracking Iranian warships accompanying
the cargo vessel bound for Hodaida port, and urged Iran instead to
use a U.N. distribution hub in Djibouti to provide help to people in
the war-damaged Arabian Peninsula country.
"We would discourage any provocative actions," said U.S. State
Department spokesman Jeff Rathke.
Iran is an ally of the Houthi movement, Yemen's most powerful
political faction which the coalition accuses of toppling the
rightful government.
Iranian warships will escort the vessel, a naval commander was
quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
"The 34th fleet, which is currently in the Gulf of Aden, has special
responsibility to protect the Iranian humanitarian aid ship,"
Admiral Hossein Azad said, referring to a destroyer and support
vessel in international waters off Yemen.
Asseri said any Iranian vessels sailing to Yemen, whether
accompanied by warships or not, needed the permission of the Yemeni
government or the coalition to make the journey.
PROXY
In the latest violence, warplanes bombed targets in the northern
province of Hajja near the border with Saudi Arabia, killing 20
people, most of them civilians, residents said.
Looking to prepare for the truce and jumpstart stalled political
talks among Yemen's civil war factions, the new U.N. envoy to the
country arrived in Sanaa, saying fighting would not resolve a
conflict that crosses ethnic and religious faultlines.
"We are convinced there is no solution to Yemen's problem except
through a dialogue, which must be Yemeni," the envoy, Mauritanian
diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, was quoted as saying by the local
Saba news agency.
Seeking to restore exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, an
alliance of Gulf Arab nations has since March 26 been bombing the
Iranian-backed Houthi militia and allied army units that control
much of Yemen.
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Backed by Washington, top oil exporter Saudi Arabia worries that the
Shi'ite Muslim Houthis are a proxy for arch-rival Iran to expand its
sway in the Saudis' backyard. Saudi-led air strikes on a rocket
base in Sanaa on Monday killed 90 people and wounded 300, a local
official was quoted as telling Saba. If confirmed, the death toll
would be among the highest in a single bombing incident throughout
Yemen's war.
Sanaa residents said there were three air strikes on a base for army
contingents aligned with the Houthis in the north of the capital on
Tuesday, sending up a column of smoke.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir was quoted as saying on Monday
that the truce in Yemen may be extended if "(aid deliveries)
succeeded and if the Houthis and their allies don't engage in
hostile activities".
AIRLIFT
Adrian Edwards of U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said planes were poised
to take off from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates bearing 300
tonnes of sleeping mats, blankets and tent material.
"The UNHCR is making final preparations for a huge airlift of
humanitarian aid into Yemen's Sanaa, to take place over the next
days if today's proposed ceasefire comes into effect and holds," he
told a briefing in Geneva.
In Aden, locals said four residents were killed in Houthi shelling,
while four anti-Houthi militiamen operating a tank were killed in an
Arab air strike - one of the first reported incidents of friendly
fire since the campaign began.
On Monday, the Houthis and Saudi forces exchanged heavy artillery
fire along the two countries' rugged desert border.
UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing in
Geneva on Tuesday the total number of civilians killed since March
26 stood at 828, including 182 children and 91 women, with a further
1,500 wounded.
(Additional reporting by Sam Wilkin in Dubai, Angus McDowall in
Riyadh, Mostafa Hashem in Cairo, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in
Geneva; Writing by Noah Browning and William Maclean; Editing by
Crispian Balmer, Dominic Evans and Howard Goller)
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