The Israeli military said that an alert was raised across central Israel after a missile was fired from Yemen and was shot down before it crossed into Israel. Yemen’s Houthi militants said they fired a ballistic missile at a military target in Jaffa, a city in central Israel, Yahya Saree, their military spokesperson, said in a televised statement.
The Iran-backed group in Yemen have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The U.S. military said it conducted an airstrike on Monday against a command and control facility operated by the Houthis in Yemen.
“The targeted facility was a hub for coordinating Houthi operations, such as attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a post on social media.
Al-Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by Yemen’s Houthi movement, said early on Tuesday that a strike carried out by the United States targeted al-Ardi complex in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
The Iran-backed group in Yemen has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza.
Earlier in October the U.S. long-range B-2 stealth bombers launched airstrikes, targeting underground bunkers used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, officials reported. The extent of the damage from the strikes is still unclear. Notably, this marks the first reported use of the B-2 Spirit in operations against the Houthis, who have been attacking ships in the Red Sea corridor amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel indicated that airstrikes occurred around Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. They also reported strikes near the Houthi stronghold of Saada but did not provide immediate information on damage or casualties.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
