By Mustafa Abu Ganeyeh
BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel (Reuters) -A missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels towards Israel on Sunday landed near Ben Gurion Airport, the country’s main international airport, sending a plume of smoke into the air and causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, who claimed responsibility for the missile strike, have recently intensified missile launches at Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate.
“We attacked in the past, we will attack in the future,” he said in a video circulated by his office.
A senior Israeli police commander, Yair Hetzroni, showed reporters a crater caused by the impact of the missile, which airport authorities said landed beside a road near a Terminal 3 parking lot. The airport lies near the major city of Tel Aviv.
“You can see the scene right behind us here, a hole that opened up with a diameter of tens of metres and also tens of metres deep,” Hetzroni said, adding that there was no significant damage.
Israel’s Channel 12 News said Netanyahu would meet security ministers and defence officials on Sunday to discuss a response.
Most attacks from Yemen have been intercepted by Israel’s missile defence systems, apart from a drone strike that hit Tel Aviv last year. Sunday’s missile was the only one of a series launched in the past few days that was not intercepted.
The Israel Defense Forces said it was investigating.
“Today (Sunday), at approximately 9:18 a.m. (0618 GMT), the IDF identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory. According to protocol, sirens were sounded in a number of areas in Israel,” the military said.
“Several attempts were made to intercept the missile. A hit was identified in the area of Ben Gurion Airport.”
U.S. STRIKES ON HOUTHIS
A Reuters reporter at the airport heard sirens and saw passengers running towards safe rooms.
Several people posted videos filmed on smartphones that showed a plume of black smoke clearly visible behind parked aircraft and airport buildings, and pictures showed a nearby road scattered with dust and debris.
The Israeli ambulance service said eight people were taken to hospital for mild to moderate injuries.
Claiming responsibility, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said Israel’s main airport was “no longer safe for air travel”.
The Israel Airports Authority said normal operations had resumed, after reports of air traffic being halted and access routes to the airport being blocked.
However, several airlines including Lufthansa, Delta, ITA Airways and Air France said they had cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv, some of which had been scheduled for Monday or Tuesday.
Sunday’s strike came as Israeli ministers were reported to be close to signing off on plans to expand the military operation in Gaza, which resumed in March following a two-month truce – prompting the Houthis to hit Israel with more missiles.
Efforts to revive the ceasefire have faltered, and U.S. President Donald Trump in March ordered large-scale strikes against the Houthis to reduce their capabilities and deter them from targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The strikes have killed hundreds of people in Yemen.
The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, began targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping in late 2023, during the early days of the war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The war was triggered by Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. Israel’s offensive on Gaza has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians and destroyed much of the enclave.
(Additional reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din, Jaidaa Taha, Alexander Cornwell and Steven Scheer;Writing by Estelle Shirbon;Editing by Toby Chopra and Helen Popper)
