Houthi-claimed missile strike hits Israel airport area
Houthi-claimed missile strike hits Israel airport area
The impact of the missile caused a crater beside a road near a Terminal 3 parking lot. Photo: Reuters
A missile fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels towards Israel on Sunday landed near Ben Gurion Airport, the country's main international airport, sending a plume of smoke into the air and causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis, who claimed responsibility for the missile strike, have recently intensified missile launches at Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
A senior Israeli police commander, Yair Hetzroni, showed reporters a crater caused by the impact of the missile, which airport authorities said had landed beside a road near a Terminal 3 parking lot.
"You can see the scene right behind us here, a hole that opened up with a diameter of tens of metres and also tens of metres deep," Hetzroni said, adding that there was no significant damage.
In a statement after the strike, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said: "Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold."
Israel's Channel 12 News said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would meet security ministers and defence officials on Sunday to discuss a response.
Most missile launches from Yemen have been intercepted by Israel's missile defence systems, apart from a strike that hit Tel Aviv last year. The military said it was investigating what happened with Sunday's launch, which caused sirens to be activated across central Israel, including nearby in the major city of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli ambulance service said eight people were being taken to hospital, including a man in a mild to moderate condition with injuries to his limbs and two women in a mild condition with head injuries.
Claiming responsibility for the strike, the Houthis' military spokesperson Yahya Saree said Israel's main airport was "no longer safe for air travel".
A spokesperson for the Israel Airports Authority said takeoffs and landings had resumed and operations at Ben Gurion had returned to normal, after reports of air traffic being halted and access routes to the airport being blocked.
However, flight operations were disrupted due to the missile, according to Ben Gurion's live air traffic site.
Some flights, including by Air India, TUS Airways and Lufthansa Group, were cancelled. Others, including to US airports Newark and JFK, were delayed by about 90 minutes. (Reuters)
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