Netanyahu says Israel will exact heavy price for Houthi attack

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the Houthis in Yemen should have known that Israel would exact a heavy price after an attack on Israeli soil.

At a weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu also said that the current situation in northern Israel “will not continue,” and that he was determined to do everything possible to return northern evacuees to their homes.

Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for a ballistic missile attack that reached central Israel for the first time on Sunday.

“It forced more than two million Zionists to run to shelters for the first time in the enemy’s history,” the military spokesperson for the Houthis said in a statement.

The Iran-aligned Houthis who control northern Yemen fired a surface-to-surface missile that reached central Israel for the first time on Sunday, hitting an unpopulated area and causing no injuries.

Air raid sirens had sounded in Tel Aviv and across central Israel moments before the missile landed at around 6:35 a.m. local time (0335 GMT), sending residents running for shelter. Loud booms were heard, which the military said came from missile interceptors.

“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in central Israel, a surface-to-surface missile was identified crossing into central Israel from the east and fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said.

The deputy head of the Houthi’s media office, Nasruddin Amer, said in a post on X on Sunday that a Yemeni missile had reached Israel after “20 missiles failed to intercept” it, describing it as the “beginning”.

In a statement on Telegram, the group said its military spokesman would soon give details about a “qualitative operation that targeted the depth of the Zionist entity”.

Reuters saw smoke billowing in an open field in central Israel, though it was not immediately possible to determine if the fire was caused by the missile or interceptor debris.

Sunday’s strike appears to be the first time the Houthis have penetrated deep into Israeli airspace with a missile. They have fired at Israel several times since the outbreak of the Gaza war last October in what they describe as solidarity with the Palestinians. Most such missiles have been shot down although one hit an open area near Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat in March.

In July, a Houthi drone reached Tel Aviv, killing one man and wounding four others. That attack, thefirst from abroad to target Tel Aviv with a drone, prompted Israel to carry out a major air strike on Houthi military targets near Yemen’s Hodeidah port, killing six people and wounding 80.