Yemen’s Houthi rebels fire a missile at northern Israel, the first time for the group to reach there

By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a missile early Wednesday toward northern Israel, the first such attack by the group to reach the area as a monthlong intense U.S. airstrike campaign continues to target them. The Houthis separately claimed shooting down another American MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen.

Sirens sounded in Haifa, Krayot and other areas west of the Sea of Galilee, the Israeli military said.

“An interceptor was launched toward the missile, and the missile was most likely successfully intercepted,” the Israeli military said.

Those in the area could hear booms in the predawn darkness.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree later claimed the attack in a prerecorded message, claiming they targeted Haifa with a hypersonic missile. But while Saree has claimed attacks on Haifa in the past, Wednesday’s attack was the first to reach the area, the Israeli military acknowledged.

American airstrikes, meanwhile, continued targeting the Houthis on Wednesday morning, part of a campaign that began on March 15. The Houthis reported strikes on Hodeida, Marib and Saada governorates. In Marib, the Houthis described a strike hitting telecommunication equipment, which has previously been a target of the Americans.

Houthis claim to have downed another US drone

The Houthis in response have stepped up their targeting of American drones flying over the country. Late Tuesday, Saree said the rebels shot down an MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen’s Hajjah governorate.

The U.S. military acknowledged the report of the drone being downed, but said it could not comment further.

Saree said the rebels targeted the drone with “a locally manufactured missile.” The Houthis have surface-to-air missiles — such as the Iranian missile known as the 358 — capable of downing aircraft. The Houthis claim they downed 26 MQ-9s over the last decade of the Yemen war.

Iran denies arming the rebels, though Tehran-manufactured weaponry has been found on the battlefield and in sea shipments heading to Yemen for the Shiite Houthi rebels despite a United Nations arms embargo.

General Atomics Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes over 40,000 feet (12,100 meters) and remain in the air for over 30 hours. They have been flown by both the U.S. military and the CIA for years over Afghanistan, Iraq and now Yemen.

New US airstrike campaign began March 15

The U.S. is targeting the Houthis because of the group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and on Israel. The Houthis are the last militant group in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” that is capable of regularly attacking Israel.

The new U.S. operation against the Houthis under President Donald Trump is more extensive than attacks on the group were under President Joe Biden, an AP review found. The new campaign started after the rebels threatened to begin targeting “Israeli” ships again over Israel blocking aid from entering the Gaza Strip.

From November 2023 until this January, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors. That has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually. The Houthis also launched attacks targeting American warships without success.

Assessing the toll of the month-old U.S. airstrike campaign has been difficult because the military hasn’t released information about the attacks, including what was targeted and how many people were killed. The Houthis, meanwhile, strictly control access to attacked areas and don’t publish complete information on the strikes, many of which likely have targeted military and security sites.

Last week, a strike on the Ras Isa fuel port killed at least 74 people and wounded 171 others in the deadliest-known attack of the American campaign.

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Associated Press writer Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed to this report.