Man points up at a house that was damaged during an airstrike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition in Faj Attan village, Sanaa, Yemen.

The U.N. Security Council welcomed the five-day humanitarian pause for Yemen that began late Tuesday and urged all sides to respect it, Agence France Presse reported.

In a statement, the 15-member council expressed grave concern for the “severe humanitarian consequences” of the months-long violence in Yemen.

“All parties will need to transparently and reliably suspend military operations” for the humanitarian pause to hold, the council members stressed.

The Saudi-initiated truce is intended to allow for desperately-needed deliveries of humanitarian aid after seven weeks of bombing.

Saudi Arabia led a coalition in launching the air war on Yemen on March 26 to stop an advance by Iranian-backed Houthi militias and restore the authority of exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

The humanitarian pause went into effect as U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was in Sanaa for talks on holding a peace conference with all parties.

The council called on all Yemeni parties to attend the talks “without preconditions.”

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