Yemen's Houthis say fired 'ballistic missile, drone' deep into Israel

Yemen's Houthis have said in a statement on Friday that they had fired "a ballistic missile and a drone" deep into Israel. "In support of Palestine and Lebanon, we carried out a military operation against an Israeli target in the Jaffa area, Tel Aviv, using a ballistic missile, and launched a drone attack on another vital Israeli target in the coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon," the statement, aired by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV, quoted Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea as saying.

The two operations, occurring on Thursday night, "achieved their goals successfully," Sarea noted, vowing to continue strikes against Israeli targets to support the resistance of "brothers in Palestine and Lebanon," Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military confirmed earlier in a statement that militants in Yemen launched at least one missile toward Israel overnight between Thursday and Friday, setting off air raid sirens across central Israel, including Tel Aviv. The army said the missile was "successfully" intercepted and that the details were still under review, reporting no casualties.

This latest Houthi attack on Tel Aviv follows two previous ones targeting central Israel — a drone attack in July that killed one person and a missile attack earlier this month that caused a fire in an empty area in Kfar Daniel, another location in the region, according to Israeli media outlets.

The Houthi group, which controls large swathes of northern Yemen, has been attacking "Israeli-linked" shipping, with particular focus on US naval vessels, near the country's coastline since November 2023, allegedly to support Palestinians in their conflict with Israelis. The group is aligned with the anti-Israel "axis of resistance," which also includes Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and militant groups in Iraq and Syria, among others.

Also meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike targeted a Syrian military position near the Lebanese border early on Friday, killing five soldiers and wounding another, the Syrian defence ministry said. The attack occurred at around 1.35 am local time, and originated from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights, the ministry said in a statement.

The airstrike hit a site near Kfeyr Yabous, in the Damascus countryside close to the Syrian-Lebanese border, Xinhua news agency reported. Israel, which has launched hundreds of strikes on Syria in recent years, rarely comments on its military actions in the country. The strike also came after Israeli media reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the cutting off of Hezbollah supply routes between Syria and Lebanon.