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Yemen's Houthis call on airlines to cancel flights to Israel, pledge more airport attacks
The missile fired from Yemen by the Houthis landed near the main terminal of the Tel Aviv airport on Sunday, wounding six people.
- PUBLISHED: Mon 5 May 2025, 7:42 AM UPDATED: Mon 5 May 2025, 8:03 AM
- By:
- AFP
Yemen's Houthi rebels said they would target Israeli airports, after a missile fired by the Iran-backed group struck the area of Israel's main airport.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack, saying their forces "carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion airport" with a "hypersonic ballistic missile".
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In a statement, the group's military spokesperson Yayha Saree called on airlines to cancel flights to Israeli airports, saying that attacks on them would continue, "particularly the one in Lod, called Ben Gurion", near Tel Aviv.
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Several international airlines suspended flights to Israel following the attack.
An Israeli police video showed officers standing on the edge of a deep hole in the ground with a control tower visible behind them. No damage was reported to airport infrastructure.
An AFP photographer said the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport's largest.
The missile fired from Yemen by the Houthis landed near the main terminal of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, wounding six people.
The military confirmed that the attack, which gouged a large crater in the perimeter of the airport, had struck despite "several attempts... to intercept the missile".
In a video published on Telegram, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had in the past "acted against" the Iran-backed rebels and "will act in the future".
"It will not happen in one bang, but there will be many bangs," he added, without elaborating.
Later on X, Netanyahu said Israel would also respond to Iran at "a time and place of our choosing".
The Houthi group also blamed Washington for around 10 strikes in and around the capital Sanaa.
The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, saying they act in solidarity with Palestinians.
'A loud bang'
"You can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen metres wide and several dozen metres deep," central Israel's police chief, Yair Hezroni, said in the video.
"This is the first time" that a missile has directly struck inside the airport perimeter, an Israeli military spokesperson told AFP.
Israel's Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated at least six people with light to moderate injuries.
An AFP journalist inside the airport during the attack said he heard a "loud bang" at around 9.35am (6.35 GMT), adding that the "reverberation was very strong".
"Security staff immediately asked hundreds of passengers to take shelter, some in bunkers," the AFP journalist said.
Open and operational
One passenger said the attack, which came shortly after air raid sirens sounded across parts of Israel, caused "panic".
"It is crazy to say but since October 7 we are used to this," said the 50-year-old, who did not want to be named, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Flights resumed after being halted briefly, with the aviation authority saying Ben Gurion was now "open and operational".