Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for a surface-to-surface ballistic missile that landed a few miles south-east of Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv on Sunday morning as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, warned the group it would pay a “heavy price”.
The missile triggered air sirens across the country at around 6.30am, with local media airing footage of people racing to shelters at the international airport. According to reports, the missile hit an open area in the Ben Shemen forest, sparking a fire near Kfar Daniel. There were no reports of casualties or damage.
The Israeli military is investigating if the fire was the result of falling fragments due to the interceptor missiles launched at the projectile, or if the rocket had actually penetrated Israeli air defences as the Houthis have claimed, saying the group had used a hypersonic missile for the first time. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they made several attempts to intercept the missile using their multi-tiered air defences but had not yet determined whether any had been successful.
“An initial inquiry indicates the missile most likely fragmented in mid-air,” the IDF said, with “several interception attempts made by the Arrow and Iron Dome aerial defence systems”. It added that “the entire incident is under review”.
Nasruddin Amer, the deputy head of the Houthi media office, said in a post on X on Sunday that a Yemeni missile had reached Israel after “20 missiles failed to intercept” it, describing it as the “beginning”.
A Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said they had launched a “new hypersonic ballistic missile” towards an Israeli military target, which crossed 1,270 miles in 11 minutes and which the IDF failed to intercept.
Hashim Sharaf al-Din, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run government, said Yemenis would celebrate the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad while “the Israelis will have to be in shelters”. Another senior Houthi official, Hezam al-Asad, posted a taunting message in Hebrew on the social platform X.
Netanyahu hinted at a military response in a statement released at the start of a cabinet meeting on Sunday. “This morning, the Houthis launched a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen into our territory. They should have known by now that we charge a heavy price for any attempt to harm us.”
“Those who need a reminder in this matter are invited to visit the port of Hodeidah,” he added, referring to Yemen’s Red Sea city, which Israeli warplanes bombed in July after the Houthis claimed a drone strike that killed a civilian in Tel Aviv.
The Houthis, who like Hezbollah are aligned with Iran, have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel since the start of the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, but nearly all of them have been intercepted over the Red Sea. They have also repeatedly attacked commercial shipping in what they portray as a blockade against Israel in support of the Palestinians, although most of the targeted vessels have no connection to Israel.
If confirmed, this would mark the first instance of a missile launched from Yemen landing on Israeli soil.
In July, an Iranian-made drone sent by Yemen’s rebels struck Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding at least 10. At the time, the drone appeared to have crossed much of the country through the multilayered air defences that have intercepted almost all Houthi drones and rockets since the Gaza war began.
On Sunday morning, the Israeli military also reported that approximately 40 projectiles were launched from Lebanon, with the majority being either intercepted or landing in uninhabited regions.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, and Netanyahu said on Sunday that the current situation was not sustainable.
“The existing situation will not continue. We will do everything necessary to return our residents safely to their homes,” he said.
“We are in a multi-arena campaign against Iran’s evil axis that strives to destroy us.”
Tensions are also high in the West Bank, where Israeli military operations have been going on for weeks and violence has surged to unprecedented levels, posing a significant threat to local communities.
A UN worker was fatally shot by a sniper while on the roof of his home in the northern West Bank on Saturday. The incident came as mourners gathered in Turkey to lay to rest a US-Turkish activist who was killed by the Israeli military during a protest this month, approximately 20 miles away.
The UN employee, Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, who worked as a sanitation worker with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, became the first Unrwa employee to be killed in the West Bank in more than a decade.
Ten months into Israel’s war on Gaza, the death toll has passed 41,000, according to health authorities there. Most of the dead are civilians and the total represents nearly 2% of Gaza’s prewar population, or one in every 50 residents. The conflict, which has gone on for nearly a year, was triggered by Hamas’s attack into Israel on 7 October in which 1,200 died and about 250 were taken hostage.