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Doctors Without Borders appeals to the warring factions to halt attacking civilians as Houthi attacks, Saudi airstrikes kill 65 civilians in Taez.
Yemen's president proposed a 15-day cease-fire that would coincide with the withdrawal of rebel militias from all government institutions and military installations and all cities and provinces.
President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi's proposal calls for the Houthi rebels and allied troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to immediately implement a UN Security Council resolution which demands an end to violence and a swift return to UN-led peace talks.
The proposal also calls for UN sanctions on the rebels to be activated.
Meanwhile, a leading international aid group made a dramatic appeal to the warring factions to halt attacks on civilians, a day after heavy fighting in a key southern city killed more than 65 people and wounded at least 23.
Doctors Without Borders also said it was unable to reach the hospitals in Taez, Yemen's third largest city, where fighting intensified on Thursday.
"We call on the warring parties to stop attacking civilian targets, especially hospitals, ambulances and densely populated neighbourhoods and allow medical personnel and humanitarian organisations to provide assistance," the aid group, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF, said in a statement.
Yemeni security officials said the violence in Taez began with the Houthi rebels first shelling residential areas and killing 23 civilians. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to reporters.
The shelling provoked airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, which has been targeting the Houthis since March, when Yemen's crisis escalated amid the rebel advance and land grab.
The subsequent airstrikes killed at least 35 people and demolished five houses in the eastern neighbourhood of Sala, from where the rebels launched their attacks earlier Thursday, the officials added.
Among those killed, at least 17 were children and 20 were women, according to Doctors Without Borders, which added that more than 65 people were killed in Taez on Thursday.
The survivors, the group reported, were left "searching through the rubble with their bare hands" in the hope of finding victims buried underneath.
"It was a hellish night," said Taez resident Omar Karim, who could not sleep from the sound of the shelling as he and his family cowered in their basement for shelter.
"Patients and MSF staff are unable to reach hospitals due to the heavy fighting and airstrikes," the aid group said in a statement, adding that 923 people have been wounded over the past three days, and that 133 of them died due to their severe injuries.
Only seven of Taez's 21 hospitals are currently open but they are "totally overwhelmed" and have run out of essential medication, MSF said.
Meanwhile, in the port city of Aden, witnesses on the Gold Mohur beach said a masked group of armed men led six men in orange jumpsuits with their hands tied behind their backs onto a boat on Wednesday. The booby-trapped boat, they said, was dragged out to sea by another boat, before it was detonated remotely.
The explosion killed the six captives, whose identities were not known, said the witnesses, speaking on condition of anonymity fearing for their own safety.
No group claimed responsibility for the killings but Daesh-affiliated militants have carried out such slayings in the past.
Agencies
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