Houthis Launch Missile Attack on Israel Amid Rising Iran Conflict Israel Says Missile Intercepted

Yemen’s Houthi movement rebels have claimed responsibility for a missile attack on Israel, their first since the US-Israel war on Iran began.

Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued the claim in a statement aired on Saturday by the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite television.

Attacks “will continue until the declared objectives are achieved, as stated in the previous statement by the Armed Forces, and until the aggression against all fronts of the resistance ceases”, Saree said.

The Israeli military said it intercepted the missile.

The attack came hours after Saree signaled in a vague statement Friday that the rebels would join the war that shocked the region and rattled the global economy.

He said the rebels fired a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting what he described as “sensitive Israeli military sites” in southern Israel.

Sirens went off around Beer Sheba and the area near Israel’s main nuclear research centre for the third time overnight Friday into Saturday as Iran and Hezbollah continued to fire on Israel overnight.

The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014 and so far stayed out of the US-Israel war.

The militia’s attacks on shipping vessels during the Israel-Hamas war upended commercial transit in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion worth of goods passed each year.

The Houthi rebels attacked over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, from November 2023 until January 2025.

In 2024, the Trump administration launched strikes against the Houthis that ended weeks later.

Mohamad Elmasry, a professor of Media Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, described the Houthis entering the US-Israeli war on Iran as as “very significant”.

“We have seen over the past two-and-a-half years that Houthis have significant power,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera.

“If they decided to move to shut down Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Red Sea and, ultimately, the Suez Canal then we would have two major choke points [shut down] along with the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.

“These are major international shipping waterways for international trade, so I think it can be very significant from that standpoint.”