The leader of Yemen’s Houthi militia on Saturday night claimed that a surface-to-surface missile it had launched at central Israel hours earlier was timed to coincide with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to the Jewish state from the United States.
The Israel Defense Forces said that the country’s aerial defense array had downed the missile “outside of the country’s borders.”
Sirens were triggered across central Israel, including in Tel Aviv, due to fears of falling shrapnel.
Parts of the intercepted projectile fell near the community of Tzur Hadassah close to Jerusalem, causing minor damage, according to authorities.
Netanyahu touched down in Israel about an hour before the attack, following his address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
In a televised speech, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi also vowed that the targeted killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Friday would “not be in vain.”
“These great sacrifices and great injustice will not be wasted,” he said.
Yemen’s Houthi militia, an Iranian proxy force, have launched multiple attacks on the Jewish state in support of Hamas in the wake of the Gaza terror group’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel.
Israel’s “Arrow” defense system intercepted a surface-to-surface ballistic missile fired at the Jewish state from Yemen on Friday, according to the Israel Defense Forces stated.
On Sept. 15, Israeli air defenses intercepted fragments of a surface-to-surface missile launched from Yemen that exploded over central Israel.
In July, a Houthi drone killed a man in Tel Aviv, in response to which Israel struck Yemen’s Hodeidah port.
