At around 4:16pm on Sunday afternoon, the Houthis fired a missile toward Central Israel and the greater Jerusalem area.
By Rachel Avraham
At around 4:16pm, the bomb sirens were sounded in Netanya, Abu Ghosh, Airport City, Bat Yam, Beit Shemesh, Bnei Brak, Even Yehuda, Herzliya, Holon, Modiin, Jerusalem, Kfar Chabad, Kfar Kassem, Kfar Saba, Kfar Shmaryahu, Latrun, Lod, Petach Tikva, Ra’anana, Ramat Gan, Ramla, Rehovot, Rishon LeTzion, Tel Aviv, Jaffa and across Central Israel and the greater Jerusalem area.
Arutz Sheva reported that the Houthis in Yemen sent a missile at Israel. The IDF stated that aerial defense systems were operating to intercept the threat and asked the public “to follow the Home Front Command’s defensive guidelines.”
A short time later, the IDF confirmed that one missile was intercepted, Arutz Sheva reported. The Jerusalem Post reported that there were no injuries, but that Ben-Gurion Airport was temporarily shut down. Arutz Sheva reported that residents of the city of Modiin Illit are reporting that an interceptor missile fragment fell in the city.
According to a report in the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz denounced the Houthis firing a missile towards central Israel on Sunday, stating that the Yemen-based terror group will “pay with compound interest for every attempt to fire at Israel,” in a post on his personal X/Twitter.
“We are imposing an air and sea blockade on them that hurts them greatly, and this morning we struck infrastructure and energy targets. This is just the beginning. The continuation will be strong and painful,” he added. “Whoever raises a hand against Israel – their hand will be cut off,” he concluded.
The missile, in turn, followed the IDF striking an energy infrastructure site that was used by the Houthis in Yemen, the Jerusalem Post reported. According to the IDF, the strikes were conducted in response to repeated attacks by Houthis against Israel and Israeli civilians, including launching surface-to-surface missiles and drones toward Israeli territory. Army Radio reported that the Israel Navy struck in Yemen and targeted the Haziz power station. The report compared the strike to an earlier one this year in the port of Hodeidah.
Mark Montgomery, Senior Fellow and Senior Director of Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Center on Cyber and Technology, stated, “Israel’s campaign against Houthi infrastructure has re-initiated, and not a moment too soon. Time has shown that the only response that deters Iranian proxy misbehavior is aggressive cost imposition. Israel will need to do more of these strikes if it wants to prevent Houthi actions in the future — and the United States would be well advised to join Israel in these strikes in Yemen.”
Joe Truzman, senior research analyst and editor of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Long War Journal, concluded: “The Houthis’ propaganda strategy has centered on projecting the image of enforcing a sea and air blockade on Israel in response to the war in Gaza. In reality, they cannot impose such a blockade in a significant or sustained way. Conversely, Defense Minister Katz’s remarks should not be understood as a literal declaration of an Israeli blockade against the Houthis. Rather, Katz turned the Houthis’ rhetoric of imposing a blockade on Israel back against them, framing that the Jewish state is conducting the same measures in a complicated war of information.”
