Air raid sirens blared in the resort city of Eilat and surrounding areas at about 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, warning of the infiltration of a hostile aircraft.
Local residents, who were ordered to enter their protective spaces for at least ten minutes, reported hearing the sounds of explosions. Israeli media reports said that a drone, apparently launched from Yemen, was intercepted over the Red Sea before it reached Israeli territory.
Hours later, at about 1 p.m. Israeli media reported that a missile was intercepted over Eilat. Local residents reported hearing a loud explosion.
Channel 14 reported that following an attack from Yemen, “a number of suspicious targets were intercepted by foreign countries.” Last week, The Wall Street Journal revealed that Saudi Arabia intercepted one of five Iranian-provided cruise missiles fired by the Houthis in Yemen toward Israel the week before in an attack that was more significant than described by the Pentagon at the time.
Israeli security officials later confirmed that Israel had cooperated with foreign armies in intercepting drones and cruise missiles launched at Israel on Tuesday.
At about 1:20 p.m., the IDF issued a statement about the attacks, saying: “A surface-to-surface missile that was launched into the territory of the State of Israel from the Red Sea area was successfully intercepted by the Arrow long-range defense system. The Air Force’s detection systems tracked the missile’s trajectory and it was intercepted at the most appropriate operational time and location.”
“Also, IDF planes were launched earlier this morning following an aerial threat detected in the Red Sea area and intercepted hostile targets flying in the area. All the threats were intercepted outside the territory of the State of Israel. No intrusion into the area was detected.”
The Houthis in Yemen made an official statement midday on Tuesday taking responsibility for the launches toward Eilat. Kan reported that the Houthis’ military spokesperson said that an important announcement will be made at about 4 p.m.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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6 Responses
Why hasn’t Israel retaliated at the Houthis?
This may be the beginning of world war III
The title would be more accurate if it said “Iran backed Houthis”. The actual recognized government of Yemen is fighting them so I find it odd to say “Iran backed Yemen”.
The more players invited to the game, the bigger the chances of getting even more and more players involved. Unlike World War II started with the major players declaring war on each other, World War I started with the small fry getting into a shoving match, and then the “big brothers” came into to “help” and managed to turn a minor terrorist incident into the “great war”.
As an aside, Eilat is in chutz laaretz.
the title realy is i think yemen declared war on israel