Yemen’s Houthi group announced Wednesday it targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, Eilat port and a military site in the Negev region in a series of coordinated missile and drone attacks.
“The Houthi missile force launched a ballistic missile of the Zulfiqar type at Lod Airport (Ben Gurion) in the Tel Aviv area,” Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a prerecorded statement.
He added that the strike forced “occupying Zionist settlers into shelters and halted airport operations.”
Saree said the group also conducted operations using drones. Two drones targeted an Israeli military site in the Negev region, while others were aimed at Ben Gurion Airport and the port of Eilat according to Anadolu.
Earlier, the Israeli army said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, triggering air raid sirens in several southern areas. The army did not mention any drone activity in its statement.
Air raid sirens sounded across multiple towns and settlements in the Negev and Dead Sea areas, according to Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth daily.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the port of Eilat will suspend operations starting Sunday due to financial distress, largely attributed to a sharp decline in revenue caused by the ongoing Houthi naval blockade in the Red Sea.
According to the report, the port has accumulated roughly 10 million shekels ($2.9 million) in debt, primarily due to unpaid municipal taxes. The network said ships that previously docked at Eilat have diverted to Ashdod and Haifa ports on the Mediterranean, citing “aggressive Houthi activity in the Red Sea.”
The Houthis have intensified missile and drone strikes on Israel since Israeli forces resumed their attacks on the Gaza Strip in March after two months of a shaky ceasefire.
Since November 2023, the group has also targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea in support of Palestinians in Gaza, where nearly 58,900 people have been killed in an Israeli onslaught.
What are the options Israel and America’s has to confront the continuing Yemeni drones and hypersonic missiles? Is it bombing Tehran and/or implementing the latest Syrian case in Sanaa? Why not rule both out?
The Israeli occupation, government and settlers, are today in a state of hysterical panic due to the never-ending hypersonic ballistic missile attacks and the advanced drones bombing the heart of Tel Aviv and causing serious human casualties and huge fires.
This state of hysteria is reflected in four distinguishing signs:
First: Threats by more than one Israeli official to launch a massive attack on Yemen similar to that on Gaza whilst carring out assassination campaigns targeting the political and military leaders of Ansar Allah, especially Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
Second: More than two million Israeli settlers took refuge in shelters, and sirens sounded in more than 80 locations in occupied Palestine over the past four days.
Third: Closing the airspace of Ben Gurion Airport to air traffic, which created confusion, chaos, isolation, and moral collapse.
Fourth: Failure of Israeli celebrations of two major successes achieved according to Hebrew newspapers, namely: In Imposing a ceasefire in Lebanon, stopping attacks from the southern Lebanese border, and the second by toppling the Syrian regime, the jewel of the resistance axis as boasted by Netanyahu that it was he who played the biggest role in achieving this.
Israeli Minister of War Yisrael Katz broke with all established Israeli norms by officially acknowledging, for the first time, responsibility for the assassination of the Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, and Yahya Sinwar in Rafah.
Katz threatened the Houthis leaders that they would face the same fate, and that the destruction that occurred in Gaza and Beirut would be repeated in Sanaa and Hodeidah.
But what terrifies the Israelis most, and worries their leadership is the arrival of the incessant Yemeni missiles and drones to the heart of major Zionist cities, like Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashkelon, and Eilat with millions of settlers descending into shelters.
Indeed, this points to the failure of Israel’s highly advanced air defense systems to intercept these missiles, prevent them from reaching their targets, and inability to provide security and protection for the settlers in these major cities.
Perhaps the threats of Israeli officials to launch attacks on Yemeni cities reflect the extent of the pain they are suffering as a result of these incoming deadly projectiles.
These, and before them the Israeli, American and British air strikes on Sana’a and Hodeidah, have not achieved the goals of deterring Yemeni missile attacks and stopping their bombing of the Israeli depth.
On the contrary, they gave completely opposite results with their continual launching of hypersonic missiles and drones, and more dangerously, the downing of the advanced US F-18 jet, and the damaging of American aircraft carrier Harry Truman in the Red Sea and its escape to the north to prepare to leave the region, like its predecessors, the Eisenhower, the Lincoln, and many other naval destroyers.
The Yemeni military statements by Brigadier-General Yahya Saree in the past three days confirmed the bombing of Tel Aviv, Ashdod and Ashkelon deep inside Israel will continue as long as the extermination war on Gaza continues.
These statements were backed by the launch of more hypersonic missiles and drones in quick and direct responses to the Israeli threats, which means Yemen is not afraid and is responding in kind, has patience, and is ready to sacrifice.
Yemen has become the spearhead of the axis of resistance, and main front after the situation in Lebanon calmed down following the ceasefire agreement, and the commitment of the Islamic resistance there despite the violations. It is not unlikely that the Israeli occupation state, with American support, and perhaps Arab support as well, will present two main military options in the coming few days:
First: Going to the head of the octopus, i.e. Iran, as described by the Israelis, by launching an expanded tripartite Israeli-American-British attack to destroy it, according to the recommendation of Mossad Chief David Barnea as targeting Sana’a and Hodeidah again will not stop the Yemeni attacks with missiles and drones from reaching the occupied Palestinian depth.
Second: Repeating the Syrian scenario in Sana’a, i.e. an attempt to undermine and exhaust the Houthis by supporting the other Yemeni military groups and movements hostile to it by supplying them with modern weapons, providing air cover for their attacking forces, and mobilizing regional support for this step.
Launching a large tripartite aggression on Yemen may fail and give adverse results, and the same can be said about the expected attack on Iran, and it will be the occupying state and its military bases that may be exposed to bombing with thousands of ballistic and supersonic missiles, because the loss of the resistance axis of its last, most powerful and effective arena (Yemen) means its end and its Iranian leadership, and the creation of a new Middle East led by a “Greater Israel”.
However great Yemen will not surrender, and will not be defeated, as history tells of its victory over all previous invaders. Its steadfastness for more than eight years in the US-backed Gulf War against it confirms it will withstand any new Israeli-American-British targeting it, as its internal incubator is strong and solid and difficult to break due to the rallying of people around its leadership, which is embodied in the massive million-person demonstrations every Friday now for several months in solidarity with our people in the Gaza Strip.
CROSSFIREARABIA – The number of Hezbollah missiles launched from southern Lebanon, Sunday, has increased to 340.
This is the largest single volley of missiles Hezbollah struck north and center Israel in a single day since 7 October, 2023.
These trajectories, including missiles and drones have reached all parts, cities, towns, settlements and military and naval bases across Israel, reaching to the Ashdod Port just before the northern Gaza Strip.
The major city of Tel Aviv took a battering on Sunday, 24 November, 2024, being volley-struck four times in a single day – the biggest ever scare since 7 October.
Today, sirens, according to Israeli sources went off 500 times across Israel with four million Israelis spending their day in underground shelters.
Military expert Brigadier-General Elias Hanna said that Hezbollah is trying – through its intensive rocket barrages towards central Israel, Sunday – “to draw a new equation whose title is the heart of Beirut versus Tel Aviv.” He explained that Hezbollah has proven its ability to launch rockets from the front lines into the Israeli interior, pointing to the large number of rockets it launched today compared to a previous daily average of between 70 and 100 rockets.
CrossFireArabia
