Yemen’s Houthi rebels vow more attacks on Israel if war on Hamas continues: Statement
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The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 and control large swathes of the country.
PHOTO: AFP
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SANAA – Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Tuesday pledged more attacks against Israel if its war on Hamas continues.
They said they had already fired drones and ballistic missiles in three separate operations.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces... confirm they will continue to carry out qualitative strikes with missiles and drones until the Israeli aggression stops,” said a Houthi military statement aired on the rebels’ Al-Masirah TV.
It said Houthi rebels “launched a large batch of ballistic missiles... and a large number of armed aircraft” towards Israel on Tuesday.
It was the third such operation since the Gaza assault began on Oct 7 after Hamas militants staged the worst attack in Israel’s history.
“These drones belong to the state of Yemen,” the Prime Minister of the Houthi government, Mr Abdelaziz Habtour, said when asked about the launch towards Eilat in southern Israel.
The Houthis, who seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 and control large swathes of the country, are “part of the axis of resistance” against Israel and are fighting with “words and drones”, he added.
Israel’s military earlier reported a “hostile aircraft intrusion” that set off warning sirens in the area of Eilat, a resort town on the Red Sea.
Israel said it had intercepted a “surface-to-surface missile” fired towards its territory, adding that it was “successfully intercepted by the ‘Arrow’ aerial defence system”.
Israel blamed the Houthis for a similar drone attack on Friday in which its aircraft intercepted “hostile targets” headed for southern Israel.
Six people were lightly injured in neighbouring Egypt when debris hit a building in the Sinai resort of Taba, just across the border from Eilat, the Egyptian army said at the time.
On Oct 19, the US Navy said it shot down three land-attack cruise missiles
Israel has been pounding the Gaza Strip since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked the southern part of the country on Oct 7
Israeli officials said more than 1,400 people were killed and over 200 were taken hostage.
Since then, more than 8,500 people have been killed, many of them children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Concerns are high over a regional conflagration.
Iran financially and militarily backs Hamas, and has loyalists and proxy fighters in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Teheran insists it had no involvement in the Oct 7 attack.
Since the Gaza war flared up, there have been a string of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria as well as almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.
On Sunday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned on X, formerly Twitter, that Israel had “crossed the red lines, and this may force everyone to take action”, without elaborating. AFP
