A missile from Yemen's Houthi rebels struck Tel Aviv overnight from Friday to Saturday, lightly injuring 16 people, before the Israeli army intercepted a drone entering Israeli airspace from the east.
“Following sirens that sounded in central Israel, a projectile launched from Yemen was identified and interception attempts were made without success,” the Israeli army said.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for firing a “Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missile” on a “military target of the Israeli enemy” in the Jaffa region, in the center of the country.
A few hours later, the Israeli army announced that it had intercepted a drone coming from the east above its territory.
She did not specify the origin of the drone, but several similar attacks have been claimed in recent months by pro-Iranian groups in Iraq.
– “Like in the movies” –
Since the start of the war triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil, the Houthis of Yemen, supported by Iran, have launched numerous offensives against Israel, which responded to several times.
The rebels claimed that Saturday's attack was carried out in response to “the massacres against (the) people in Gaza” and in “retaliation for Israeli aggression against (their) country.”
Israeli emergency services said they were alerted at 3:48 a.m. local time (01:48 GMT) of a strike in the mixed neighborhood of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, and had deployed significant resources on site.
They reported 16 minor injuries, mainly victims of broken glass, including a three-year-old girl, who were transported to two hospitals in Tel Aviv.
“An alarm sounded just before four o'clock and a big ball of fire suddenly lit up the sky, like in the movies,” Ido Barnea, whose apartment was damaged, told AFP.
“We were very lucky because we didn’t have time to take shelter,” said another resident, Noa Mosseri. “We heard a big boom a few seconds after the alarm.”
The impact of the projectile left a crater in the middle of a kindergarten. Many windows were broken and residents were forced to hastily leave their homes in the early morning while the area was secured by police.
– “High price” –
For the Israeli army, the missile fired by the Houthis is “another clear example that Israeli civilians are deliberately targeted”.
She also recalled that the country's “air defense” was “not airtight” and encouraged its population to follow security instructions.
The Houthis had already fired a missile at Israel two days earlier, which caused significant damage to a school in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, caused by “a partial interception” according to the Israeli army.
The army, for its part, bombed ports and the energy infrastructure of the rebels in Yemen, a country located more than 1,500 kilometers southeast of Israel, killing nine among them, according to their leader.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a video warning to the Houthis, declaring that “whoever hits Israel will pay a very high price.”
Most rebel attacks on Israel were countered or caused only material damage.
But in July, the death of an Israeli civilian, killed in Tel Aviv by the explosion of a drone fired from Yemen, led to a retaliatory air raid on Hodeida, causing six deaths and significant damage.
The Houthis, who control large parts of Yemen, including Sanaa, also regularly attack ships linked according to them to Israel, the United States or the United Kingdom in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden, despite strikes carried out by the American army, sometimes with the help of British forces.
They are part of what Iran calls the “axis of resistance”, which brings together other movements hostile to Israel, such as Hamas, Iraqi groups or Lebanese Hezbollah.
