Key Points

In a televised statement aired by Houthi-run al-Masirah TV, Yahya Sarea, the Houthi military spokesman, said that the group launched a "hypersonic ballistic missile" toward a "sensitive target" in the Jaffa area in southern Tel Aviv on Thursday night.

He said the missile forced a temporary halt of air traffic in the Ben Gurion Airport and caused thousands of Israeli residents to flee to shelters.

Sarea said the missile attack was in response to what he called "Israeli aggression" on the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, as well as to the Israeli airstrikes that occurred hours earlier on Yemen's capital Sanaa.

Also in the statement, Sarea warned that all commercial and military ships and vessels transiting the narrow waters of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea should identify themselves to the Houthi forces, otherwise they would be attacked, Xinhua news agency reported.

In a statement on Thursday night, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that the aerial defence systems intercepted a missile fired by the Houthis in Yemen, which came hours after Israel launched multiple airstrikes on Houthi targets in Sanaa on Thursday evening and caused eight deaths and 142 injuries so far.

The IDF said that the strikes on Sanaa were in response to the Houthi drone attack on Eilat, a Red Sea port city in southern Israel, that wounded 20 people.

The Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, have been launching missile and drone attacks on Israel and targeting Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea since November 2023.

Earlier on September 25, a drone launched from Yemen had struck the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat, injuring at least 20 people, two of them seriously, according to Israel's emergency medical service and the military.

Israel's national ambulance service, Magen David Adom, on Wednesday evening (local time) had said that the two badly wounded victims, both in their 60s, suffered severe limb injuries. Another man was moderately injured when shrapnel hit his upper body, while the remaining casualties sustained lighter wounds, mostly from shrapnel and bruising.

The drone had exploded in the city centre, in a tourist district near the Club Hotel, a large beachfront complex, according to Kan, the state-owned broadcaster. Kan also reported that Israel's air defence system attempted twice to intercept the drone but failed.

The strike came during Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, when Eilat is typically crowded with Israeli vacationers.

- IANS