Air raid sirens sounded in central Israel, including capital Tel Aviv, as a missile reportedly fired from Yemen was intercepted by the Israeli military on Saturday. According to a Reuters report, Yemen's Houthi militants said they had fired a ballistic missile at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.
The militant group said the attack was timed with the arrival of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was returning to Israel after addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday.
This was reportedly the second attempted attack on Israel by the Houthis in two days. Another missile is believed to have been intercepted on Friday.
As per a report by The Times Of Israel, on Saturday, a surface-to-surface ballistic missile from Yemen was shot down by air defences “outside the country’s borders", Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement. The remains of the missile fell near the Jerusalem-area community of Tzur Hadassah, which caused some damage, the police reported.
Houthis fired the missile shortly after they vowed that “resistance won’t be broken”, in response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an IDF airstrike on Friday.
Hassan Nasrallah led the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, for three decades, transforming it into one of the most powerful paramilitary groups in the Middle East. Hezbollah confirmed Saturday that he was killed in an Israeli air raid that levelled six apartment buildings in Beirut on Friday.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels issued a statement expressing condolences over the death of Nasrallah, highlighting the strong alliance between Houthis and Hezbollah, which are both backed by Iran.
Houthis said the earlier missile was in retaliation to the assassination of Mohammed Srur, the head of Hezbollah's drone unit, in an Israeli airstrike. The IDF on Thursday launched strikes on the south of Beirut that killed Srur. AFP reported that he was the target of the strike.