The Houthis claimed responsibility for firing a “ballistic missile” into central Israel on Sunday, with the Israeli army claiming to have intercepted a “projectile”.
The operation targeted a “vital target in the Yafa region (the Arabic name for Jaffa) in occupied Palestine” and was “carried out with a hypersonic ballistic missile”, the Yemeni rebels said in a statement.
The Israeli army had earlier indicated that a “projectile launched from Yemen was intercepted by Israeli air forces before entering Israeli territory”.
The projectile was intercepted after sirens sounded in several areas of central Israel at dawn, according to the Israeli army statement.
The Houthis said they had launched a “Palestine 2” missile, which they described as a hypersonic ballistic missile manufactured in Yemen.
The Yemeni rebels, supported by Iran, have already launched several attacks against Israel, claiming to act in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where a war has pitted Israel against Palestinian Hamas since October 7, 2023.
Last July, a drone attack on Tel Aviv by the Houthis killed an Israeli civilian, provoking Israeli retaliatory strikes against the Yemeni port of Hodeida.
The Houthis, who control large swathes of Yemen, also regularly attack ships linked to Israel, the United States or the United Kingdom in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, despite strikes carried out by the American army, sometimes with the help of the British army.
With AFP
