The Houthis have launched a series of missile attacks on Israel and blockaded the Red Sea in response to Israel’s war on Gaza [Getty]
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday issued what he called a final warning to Yemen’s Houthi group to halt missile attacks on Israel, saying they risked the same “miserable fate” as Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad if they persisted.
The ambassador, Danny Danon, also warned Tehran that Israel has the ability to strike any target in the Middle East, including Iran. He added that Israel would not tolerate attacks by “Iranian proxies”.
But hours later, the Israeli military announced that it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, prompting sirens to sound across the country.
The Yemeni group targeted Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv and a power station south of Jerusalem using a hypersonic ballistic missile and a Zulfiqar ballistic missile, respectively, the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Tuesday.
The Houthis would not end attacks on Israel, Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the Houthis’ supreme revolutionary committee, said after the Israeli military announced the missile interception.
“The pounding of the entity (Israel) continues and the support to Gaza continues,” he posted on X.
The Houthis repeatedly have fired drones and missiles towards Israeli cities in response to Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza – saying the attacks would stop when Israel ends its attacks on the Palestinian enclave.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Houthis that Israel was “just getting started” following Israeli strikes on multiple Houthi-linked targets in Yemen, including Sanaa airport, ports on the country’s west coast and two power plants.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack by Israel. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said.
Israel’s assassination of the top leaders of the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah and the destruction of their military structure along with Assad’s collapse represents a succession of victories for Netanyahu, who is wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
Briefing the Security Council meeting, Assistant UN Secretary-General for the Middle East Khaled Khiari reiterated grave concern about the escalation in violence, calling on the Houthis to halt attacks on Israel and for international and humanitarian law to be respected.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, while condemning Houthi missile attacks on Israel, also criticized Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Yemen, as well those by what he called the “Anglo-Saxon coalition” of U.S. and British warships in the Red Sea, saying they were “clearly not proportional”.
