An air strike targeting Houthi rebel forces allied to Iran has left 36 dead at a bottling plant in Yemen.

Issa Ahmed, a resident in Hajjah province, told Reuters about Sunday's incident.

"The corpses of 36 workers, many of them burnt or in pieces, were pulled out after an air strike hit the plant this morning," he said.

The attack was executed by the Saudi-led coalition backing pro-government forces as part of an aerial campaign starting in March when it opted to intervene in the Yemen conflict, according to the BBC.

Coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asseri denied the strike had hit a civilian target, saying it was a location used by the Houthis to make improvised explosive devices.

"We got very accurate information about this position and attacked it. It is not a bottling factory," he said. 

The attack comes just a few days after air raids killed 65 people in Taiz - most of them civilians, while in July, 65 people, including 10 children, were killed after a milk factory was destroyed in western Yemen, according to the Canada Journal.

Since the start of the campaign, the coalition's operations have killed almost 4,500 people, a number the UN refers to as a humanitarian "catastrophe".

Human rights group Amnestry International chimed in on the campaign, saying in a report published this month that the Saudi-led campaign has left a "bloody train of civilian death," which could amount to war crimes.