Yemen’s Houthi rebels have fired a missile at Israel’s main international airport, wounding six and forcing many foreign airlines to suspend all flights for the next several days after the US and Israeli air defense systems failed to stop the strike.
Dramatic video shows the missile crashing to the ground inside the perimeter of Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, which handled more than 21 million passengers in 2023.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) made several attempts to intercept the missile, which wasn’t brought down by either the Israel Air Force’s long-range Arrow air defense system or the American Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, defense sources told The Times of Israel.
The THAAD was deployed to Israel last year by the US in response to soaring tensions with Iran.
The airport is “no longer safe for air travel,” Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a statement claiming responsibility for Sunday’s missile strike.
Sunday’s airstrike demonstrates the Iran-backed group’s ability to strike sensitive targets in Israel, senior Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told Qatar’s Al-Araby TV channel.
The rebel group has “no red lines” in its fight against Israel, he added.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to take action against the Houthis in an address to his people on Sunday.
“We operated against them in the past and we will operate in the future,” he said in a video shared on X. “It’s not ‘bang — that’s it. But there will be bangs.”
Up to now, Israel has avoided direct airstrikes on Yemen in response to Houthi attacks, but a new statement on Sunday indicates that could change.
“Whoever harms us, we will strike them sevenfold,” Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday.
Landings and takeoffs had been halted before the missile strike, which wounded one man moderately and left five with minor injuries.
President Trump ordered large-scale strikes against the Houthis in March in a bid to reduce their capabilities and deter them from targeting Red Sea commercial shipping.
The militant group, which controls vast swathes of Yemen, began targeting Red Sea shipping and Israeli sites in late 2023 during the early days of the latest conflict in Gaza.
Many foreign airlines had only resumed flights to and from Tel Aviv this January in the wake of a ceasefire deal with the Palestinian terror group Hamas, following nearly 18 months of suspensions after the terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
After Sunday’s airstrike, Delta Air Lines announced it had canceled a planned flight from JFK to Tel Aviv on Sunday, as well as a return flight planned for Monday.
A United Airlines flight from Newark on Sunday was still scheduled to go ahead, although Delta and United flights from Tel Aviv departed some 90 minutes late.
The airport was up and running again less than 30 minutes after the missile strike, the head of Ben Gurion Airport, Udi Bar Oz, said in a statement.
Israel’s Transportation Minister and airport authorities were providing information to carriers to minimize disruption to flight schedules in the coming days, he added.
