Drone Strikes Israeli Airport

A drone fired by the Houthi militants in Yemen breached Israel's multilayered air defenses on Sunday and slammed into the country's southern airport, the Israeli military said, briefly shutting down commercial airspace and diverting flights over southern Israel. Israel said Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked with several drones, most of which were intercepted outside of Israel. At least one of the drones slipped through Israel's defense system and crashed into the passenger terminal at the Ramon International Airport near the resort city of Eilat, the Israeli Airports Authority said, blowing out glass windows and sending smoke plumes billowing. The Houthis claimed responsibility for the strike, the AP reports. An emergency service said a 63-year-old man for light shrapnel wounds.

• The backdrop: The attack took place days after Israeli strikes on Yemen's rebel-held capital of Sanaa killed the Houthi prime minister and other officials in his cabinet in a major escalation of the nearly 2-year-old conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in Yemen. Saying that they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians, the Houthis began firing missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack ignited the Israeli military's devastating campaign in Gaza. After Israel's targeted killing of Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi last Thursday, the militants vowed to escalate their attacks targeting Israel and merchant ships navigating the vital trade route through the Red Sea off Yemen.

• Airports threat: "Enemy airports are unsafe, and foreigners must leave them for their own safety," Nasruddin Amer, deputy head of the Houthi media office, wrote on social media after Sunday's attack. "Other sensitive targets are under fire." The Houthis have stepped up their aerial attacks on Israel in recent months, including by deploying warheads with cluster munitions that scatter smaller munitions over a large area and challenge Israel's air defense system that otherwise intercepts most drones and missiles. But Houthi attacks on Israel, while frequent since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October 2023, rarely cause major damage or manage to hit significant targets like airports. In May, a Houthi missile hit near Israel's main Ben Gurion Airport, prompting many international airlines to cancel flights to Tel Aviv for months.