A missile launched from Yemen struck the Israeli city of Tel Aviv early Saturday morning, marking a rare example of a failed interception over the city, the Israeli military said.
The missile landed in Tel Aviv’s southern Jaffa district after interception attempts failed after warning sirens sounded in the area, the IDF said.
No fatalities were reported, but Israeli emergency services said they were treating 14 people in “mild condition” after being injured by shards of glass. Israeli police said property damage had also occurred.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi forces claimed responsibility after the attack and announced that they had launched a hypersonic ballistic missile called “Palestine 2” at an Israeli military site in the Jaffa area.
The crater left by a Houthi missile fired into Tel Aviv on Saturday.
“The rocket accurately hit its target and the defense and interception systems failed to intercept it,” the Houthis said in a statement released Saturday morning, adding that the attack was in response to “the massacres against our brothers in Gaza.”
Hamas praised the strike in a statement shortly afterwards.
Nearly all the Houthi missiles have been intercepted over the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways, where the group has also targeted commercial ships.
Israel and Houthi rebels have repeatedly fired retaliatory attacks on each other since the start of the nearly year-long war in Gaza, which sparked when Hamas attacked southern Israel and killed about 1,200 people there. According to Palestinian health officials, Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed 45,000 people, most of them women and children.
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 25 people in Gaza on Friday, according to Reuters, citing health officials.
Dr. Muneer Alboursh, Gaza’s director general of health, said an attack on a house in Jabaliya in northern Gaza killed 12 people, “most of them children and a woman.” He called the attack a “bloody massacre” and said several others had been injured.
An injured Palestinian woman says goodbye to her child, who was killed in an Israeli attack the previous night, as she lies in bed at Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City on Saturday.
The Houthis have used the ongoing escalation in Gaza to justify their attacks on Israel.
In September, nine people were injured as they ran for shelters after a ballistic missile launched from Yemen crossed into Israel and landed in an open field outside Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv, Israel’s second largest city, serves as the country’s commercial and diplomatic center. Direct impact on the city from incoming projectiles is unusual, thanks to Israel’s generally robust air defense systems.
On Thursday, the IDF said a school near Tel Aviv was damaged after the “partial interception” of a missile launched from Yemen.
Later that day, the report said Israel had launched attacks on “military targets” on Yemen’s west coast and inland, including “fuel and oil tanks, two power plants and eight tugboats.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
