Of Athens Papakosta

The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahuvowed that Yemen’s Houthi rebels would pay a heavy price after launching a surface-to-surface missile at Israel.

According to the Israeli military, the rocket landed in a non-residential area early Sunday morning, but, according to reports so far, air defense systems failed to destroy it before it entered Israeli airspace.

Speaking at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting, Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that: “the Houthis launched a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen into our territory. They should know (…) that they will pay a heavy price every time they try to harm us.”

On his part, Mr Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, leader of the Houthi rebels of Yemen, warned that “what will follow will be bigger” adding that “the operation carried out today by our forces with an advanced missile is part of the fifth stage of escalation”.

Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have fired missiles and drones at Israel, but the Israeli armed forces have been able to intercept them over the Red Sea. This is the first time the Houthis have penetrated so deep into Israeli airspace with a missile, some 2,000 kilometers away from Yemen. An exception was last July, when an Iranian drone “reached” as far as Tel Aviv where it killed one person and injured at least ten. Shortly thereafter, Israel responded and aircraft attacked the port city of Hodeidah in Yemen, hitting one of the country’s most important oil facilities.

According to Houthi spokesman Yahya Shari, the missile used in Sunday’s attack was “a new hypersonic ballistic missile,” traveled 1,270 miles in 11 minutes and “the Israeli armed forces failed to shoot it down.” At the same time, according to Israeli media, it was detected too late.

Foreign networks recall that last June a senior official of the Biden administration, speaking to the American network CNN, had stated that there is a risk that the Israeli air defense will show signs of being burdened by the multiple attacks.

Already the Israeli armed forces announced that on Sunday morning also about 40 rockets were launched from the Lebanese side with the majority of them being intercepted or eventually ending up falling in uninhabited areas.

“The current situation will not continue. We will do whatever is necessary for the residents to return safely to their homes,” the Prime Minister of Israel said, referring to the tens of thousands of displaced people on the border with Lebanon, adding that “we are fighting in more than one arena against Iran’s axis of evil who strives to destroy us.”