Netanyahu tells Houthis they will pay ‘heavy price’ as missile hits Israel

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned Yemen’s Houthi rebels will pay a “heavy price” after the group claimed its first ballistic missile strike on Israel and its leader warned of bigger attacks to come.

The missile – claimed by the Houthis as an advanced surface-to-surface hypersonic missile – triggered air sirens across the country at about 6.30am, and local media aired footage of people racing to shelters at Ben Gurion international airport south-east of Tel Aviv. According to reports, it hit an open area in the Ben Shemen forest, sparking a fire near Kfar Daniel. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The Israeli military is investigating whether the fire was the result of falling fragments caused by the interceptor missiles launched at the projectile, or if it successfully penetrated Israeli air defences as the Houthis have claimed.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed to the Guardian that interceptors from Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow air defence systems were deployed but said it had not yet determined whether any had been successful. It said an “initial inquiry indicates the missile most likely fragmented in mid-air [after] several interception attempts,” adding that “the entire incident is under review”.

Netanyahu hinted at a military response in a statement released at the start of a cabinet meeting on Sunday. “This morning, the Houthis launched a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen into our territory. They should have known by now that we charge a heavy price for any attempt to harm us,” he said.

“Those who need a reminder in this matter are invited to visit the port of Hodeidah,” he added, referring to Yemen’s Red Sea city, which Israeli warplanes bombed in July after the Houthis claimed a drone strike that killed a civilian in Tel Aviv.

The Houthi leader, Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, warned on Sunday of further attacks on Israel. “The operation our forces carried out today with an advanced Yemeni missile is part of the fifth stage of the escalation. What is to come will be greater,” he said in a speech.

Nasruddin Amer, the deputy head of the Houthi media office, described the attack as the “beginning”, claiming in a post on X that a Yemeni missile had reached Israel after “20 missiles failed to intercept”. A Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said a “new hypersonic ballistic missile” had been aimed towards an Israeli military target, which crossed 1,270 miles in 11 minutes and which the IDF failed to intercept, while another senior Houthi official, Hezam al-Asad, posted a taunting message in Hebrew on X.

Israeli media reports suggested the missile had been detected at a very late stage.“The warhead of this missile is separate from the body, and with the help of wings and jam-proof navigation systems it zigzags its way towards the target, which can make interception systems very difficult,” said a report on the Ynet newspaper website.

The Houthis, who like Hezbollah are aligned with Iran, have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel since the start of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, but nearly all of them have been intercepted over the Red Sea. They have also repeatedly attacked commercial shipping in what they portray as a blockade against Israel in support of the Palestinians, although most of the targeted vessels have no connection to Israel.

If confirmed, this would mark the first instance of a missile launched from Yemen landing on Israeli soil.

In July, an Iranian-made drone sent by Yemen’s rebels struck Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding at least 10. At the time, the drone appeared to have crossed much of the country through the multilayered air defences that have intercepted almost all Houthi drones and rockets since the war in Gaza began.

A senior Biden administration official told CNN in June that Israel’s air defences risked being overwhelmed by multiple attacks.

On Sunday morning, the Israeli military also reported that approximately 40 projectiles had been launched from Lebanon, with the majority either being intercepted or landing in uninhabited regions.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, and Netanyahu said on Sunday that the current situation was not sustainable.

“The existing situation will not continue. We will do everything necessary to return our residents safely to their homes,” he said. “We are in a multi-arena campaign against Iran’s evil axis that strives to destroy us.”

Tensions are also high in the West Bank, where Israeli military operations have been going on for weeks and violence has surged to unprecedented levels, posing a significant threat to local communities. A UN worker was fatally shot by a sniper while on the roof of his home in the northern West Bank on Saturday.

The incident came as mourners gathered in Turkey to lay to rest a US-Turkish activist who was killed by the Israeli military during a protest in the West Bank this month. The UN employee, Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, who worked as a sanitation worker with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), became the first Unrwa employee to be killed in the West Bank in more than a decade.

Ten months into Israel’s war on Gaza, the death toll has passed 41,000, according to health authorities there. Most of the dead are civilians and the total represents nearly 2% of Gaza’s prewar population, or one in every 50 residents. The conflict, which has gone on for almost a year, was triggered by Hamas’s attack on 7 October in which 1,200 people died and about 250 were taken hostage.