SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they had launched a new drone strike against Israel on Monday, but there were no signs of such an incursion into the Jewish state.
The Houthis, who claim swathes of impoverished land in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, claimed without evidence that their latest attack had temporarily halted activity at Israeli military bases and airports.
But there were no sirens or alarms to indicate such an intrusion, and airports and military bases across the country appeared to continue operating normally. The IDF had no comment on the Houthi claims on Monday.
An unconfirmed television report from Channel 12 suggested that the alleged drones from Yemen may have been shot down by Jordan. Other Houthi attacks in recent weeks have been intercepted by both the US and Israel.
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Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Houthi military, said
“As a result of the operation, activity at the target bases and airports was suspended for several hours.”
A cruise missile fired by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen was intercepted by a missile fired from an IAF F-35I fighter jet on October 31, 2023. (Israeli Defense Forces)
Last week, the Houthis claimed they had committed a drone attack and said they had already carried out three strikes using drones and ballistic missiles.
They said they were acting as part of the “Axis of Resistance” against Israel, which includes Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
Houthi forces “continue to conduct higher quality military operations in support of the Palestinian people…until the brutal Israeli aggression against our brothers in Gaza ceases,” Saree posted on Monday.
The ongoing war broke out when Hamas terrorists stormed from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7, massacring around 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking over 240 hostages. The deadliest attack in the history of the Jewish state.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza claims that Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed more than 10,000 people, most of them children or women. That figure cannot be independently verified and is believed to include both the terror group’s own fighters and Palestinian civilians killed by misfired rockets from Gaza.
Since the conflict began, there have been a series of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, as well as almost daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the IDF on the Israel-Lebanon border.