Yemeni Houthi rebels claimed responsibility today for firing a ballistic missile at central Israel, and the Israeli army said earlier that it had intercepted the missile, Agence France-Presse reported, BTA reported.
The operation, carried out with a “hypersonic ballistic missile “Palestine 2“, was aimed at “a military target of the Israeli enemy in the Jaffa area in occupied Palestine 2“, the Houthi rebels said in a statement.
The Israeli army earlier said that “the missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the Israeli Air Force before it entered Israeli territory“. According to the Israeli army statement, the rocket was intercepted after sirens sounded in several areas of central and southern Israel before dawn.
According to “Magen David Adom“ (MDA), Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross, there were no casualties in the attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that he had asked the army to “destroy the infrastructure“ of the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who in recent days have fired several rockets at Israel, one of which wounded 16 people in Tel Aviv on Friday evening. Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, which was triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement “Hamas“ on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, the Iran-backed Houthis carried out a large number of attacks on Israel, claiming to be acting in solidarity with the Palestinians, AFP reported.