According to a Yemeni military official, more than 80 Houthi rebels were killed in Yemen's northern Marib province as the militia stepped up their onslaught in the area.

According to Saudi news agency Arab News, the rebels were killed in two days of intensive fighting with Yemeni government troops as bombings by the Saudi-led coalition pounded hot regions outside of Marib.

On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of rebels attacked government troops in Al-Kasara, Mashjah, Helan, Jabal Murad, and Rahabah, with the goal of reaching Marib city, according to the outlet.

Colonel Yahiya Al-Hatemi, the director of government forces' military media, told Arab News that the national army's artillery and Arab coalition warplanes carried out 43 air raids in Al-Kasarah and Rahabah over the past day, killing many of the fighters and destroying military equipment before the rebels could reach Marib's battlefields.

His statement read, "We counted the bodies of 81 dead [Houthi's],"

According to the Houthi-linked TV channel Al-Masirah, the Arab coalition launched 23 strikes on Marib province on Tuesday, but it did not say how many people were killed or injured.

In recent months, Iran-backed Houthi rebels have upped their offensive on oil-rich Marib, the internationally recognized government's last stronghold in north Yemen.

The new UN envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, warned on Friday that the Houthi rebels' offensive in Marib province "must stop."

Since 2014, when the Houthis took control of large parts of Yemen's north, including the capital Sanaa, the country has been engulfed in civil war.

In 2015, a US-backed, Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict to help Yemen's government restore President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to power.