DUBAI (Reuters) – Yemen’s Houthi rebels said late on Sunday they would impose a “comprehensive” aerial blockade on Israel by repeatedly targeting its airports, in response to Israel expanding its operations in Gaza.
The Iran-aligned Houthis claimed responsibility for a missile strike on Sunday that hit near Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, the latest in a string of attacks, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate.
Most attacks from Yemen have been intercepted by Israel’s missile defence systems, though a drone strike hit Tel Aviv last year. Sunday’s missile was the only one of a series launched since March that was not intercepted.
The Houthis’ Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center, a body set up last year to liaise between Houthi forces and commercial shipping operators, issued the warning about targeting Israeli airports, saying Ben Gurion Airport would be the top target.
The statement attached an email it said was sent to the International Air Transport Association, the global airlines body, and the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization.
Houthi forces called “upon all international airlines to take this announcement into serious consideration … and to cancel all their flights to the airports of the criminal Israeli enemy, in order to safeguard the safety of their aircraft and passengers,” the email said.
Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for an expanded operation in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported on Friday, adding to signs that attempts to stop the fighting and return hostages held by Palestinian militant group Hamas have made no progress.
Since the collapse of an earlier ceasefire agreement in March, Israeli troops have been carving out wide buffer zones in Gaza, squeezing the 2.3 million population into an ever narrower zone in the centre of the enclave and along the coast and shutting off the entry of aid trucks.
Aid groups have warned the Israeli blockade risks a humanitarian disaster.
Israel’s campaign on Gaza has laid waste to much of the enclave and so far killed more than 52,000 people, according to Gaza officials, since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 people taken hostage.
(Reporting by Yousef Saba. Editing by Mark Potter)
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