The Israeli Air Force on Monday intercepted a drone launched by Houthi terrorists from Yemen before it crossed the country’s borders, the military stated. No sirens were triggered by the attack.
According to Hebrew media reports, the UAV came from the west and was shot down off the central Israel coast. This follows reports that two missiles aimed at Israel by the Iranian-backed group earlier in the morning fell short, exploding in Saudi Arabia.
On Monday, another Houthi drone was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
The terrorist group said on Monday that it had fired a missile at the Liberia-flagged, Israeli-owned tanker “Scarlet Ray” ship near Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port city of Yanbu.
Monday’s attacks came on the same day that thousands descended on the Yemeni capital Sanaa for the funerals of 12 senior Houthi officials, including the prime minister, who were killed in an Israeli strike on Aug. 28 while they had gathered to watch a televised address by top Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
The attack left most of the terrorist government’s cabinet dead and it was unclear as of Tuesday if the defense minister, Mohamed al-Atifi, who runs the Missiles Brigades Group, was also killed.
The crowd chanted the Houthi slogan “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam,” according to Reuters.
Mohammed Miftah, who replaced Ahmad Ghaleb al-Rahwi as prime minister on Saturday, railed against “Zionists” at the funeral.
“We are facing the strongest intelligence empire in the world, the one that targeted the government—the whole Zionist entity (comprising) the U.S. administration, the Zionist entity, the Zionist Arabs and the spies inside Yemen,” Miftah told the crowd of mourners at the Al Saleh mosque.
Houthi terrorists detained at least 11 United Nations staff in a raid on the international body’s offices in Sanaa on Sunday, Reuters reported.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the action in an X post on Monday, saying that the Iranian-backed terrorist group forcibly entered the World Food Programme and other U.N. sites and confiscated property.
Jerusalem’s attack on the terror group’s leadership followed several strikes in recent months on infrastructure-related terror sites in Yemen, including Hudaydah port.
The Houthis started attacking the Jewish state in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion and massacre on Oct. 7, 2023. The Yemeni group said it had joined the war in an expression of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Before the attack on Sanaa, the Houthis fired, for the first time, a missile containing a new type of cluster sub-munition at Israel. The Houthis fired another missile on Sunday night which fell on the way, triggering no sirens.
The vast majority of the missiles and drones have been intercepted, but some have penetrated Israel’s air defenses, including a direct hit at Ben Gurion International Airport.
