Yemen’s Houthis claim to have targeted Israel’s Tel Aviv and Ashkelon

Iran-aligned group says it will continue its attacks on Israel until its ‘aggression on Lebanon and Gaza stops’.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim they fired a ballistic missile towards southern Tel Aviv and launched a drone at the coastal city of Ashkelon.

The Iran-aligned group pledged on Friday to continue its attacks on Israel until its “aggression on Lebanon and Gaza stops” after it emerged that its attempt to hit Tel Aviv had been foiled by air defences.

“We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon,” said Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree in a televised speech.

The Houthis have repeatedly fired at Israel and have carried out numerous attacks on Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait since November in what they describe as a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli attack in Gaza.

Now, as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalates, with Israeli strikes killing more than 700 people since Monday, the Houthis are also demanding that Israel halt its assault on Lebanon.

The Israeli military said on Friday that it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard across Tel Aviv early in the day.

“Following the sirens that sounded in central Israel, the surface-to-surface missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted by an ‘Arrow’ interceptor outside of Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement.

In July, the Houthis fired a drone at Tel Aviv for the first time, killing a man and injuring at least 10 people.

In response, the Israeli Air Force attacked Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah that month, causing a massive fire and six deaths.

Houthi leaders subsequently announced a new phase in the fight against Israel.

Earlier this month, the Houthis reached central Israel with what they described as a hypersonic missile, causing fires, triggering air raid sirens, and sending residents running for shelter in the area around Ben Gurion airport.

Israeli responders put out a fire in the area of Lod, near Tel Aviv, after a missile fired from Yemen crossed into central Israel on September 15 and ‘fell in an open area’, according to the military [File: Menahem Kanaha/ AFP]

Israel said the Houthi missile was damaged, but not destroyed, by an Israeli interceptor missile. It claimed that the missile was not hypersonic, adding that it “did not manoeuvre in flight”, according to The Times of Israel.

The Houthis have effectively been under a United Nations arms embargo since 2015. According to a UN report by sanctions monitors, the group has received help from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi groups.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies