The United Nations special envoy for Yemen on Monday announced that the warring parties in the conflict-torn nation have agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire starting Thursday. Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. Yemen’s foreign minister said the country’s Saudi-backed president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, had given his go-ahead and said the cessation of hostilities can be “extended if the other party adheres to it, [and that it] activates the DCC and lifts the siege of Taiz”.

The DCC is a military panel that monitors ceasefires.

The UN’s statement said, “The Special Envoy welcomes the restoration of the Cessation of Hostilities, which will spare the Yemeni people further bloodshed and will allow for the expanded delivery of humanitarian assistance.” The Yemeni government had agreed to the ceasefire on the condition that the Iran-backed Houthi rebels allow aid to reach the besieged city of Taiz, Al Jazeera reported.

The move comes after the Saudi-led coalition struck a funeral procession in Yemen’s capital Sana’a on October 9, leaving more than 140 people dead. While Saudi Arabia had initially denied the Houthi-dominated government's claims that the coalition it led was behind the attack, the alliance later said it would investigate the strikes along with experts from the United States, which is one of its allies. The airstrike drew widespread condemnation from the international community, and both the US and United Kingdom subsequently pushed for a ceasefire.

More than 10,000 people have died and three million have been displaced in Yemen since the Saudi-led coalition got involved in Yemen's civil war. The coalition and the international community supports president Hadi, though the Iran-backed Houthis and their allies attacked his strongholdsin March 2015, declaring their loyalty to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Both the Houthi-dominated rebels and the Saudi-backed Hadi supporters claim that they constitute the country’s government.