Israel intercepts missile from Yemen after airstrikes on Houthi port

Although it was not immediately clear who launched the missile, a Houthi military spokesman had promised retaliation for Israel’s airstrikes Saturday on Hodeida, a port city in Yemen controlled by the the rebel group. Spokesman Yahya Saree said the Israeli raids struck the port, a power station and a fuel tank.

On Sunday, Saree said his group had launched “a number of missiles” against targets in the southern Israeli port city of Eilat. It was not immediately clear whether the two reported attacks were one and the same. Earlier on Sunday, the IDF said air defense sirens were sounding in the area of Eilat.

The Israeli strikes on Saturday were a response to a rare drone attack on Tel Aviv on Friday for which the Houthis claimed responsibility. The attack killed one person and struck just yards from a U.S. Embassy branch office.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli response to the drone attack made “it clear to our enemies that there is no place that the long arm of the State of Israel will not reach.”

After the war in Gaza began in October, the Houthis started attacking ships near the Yemeni coast in an effort to build pressure on Israel to end its military operations in the Strip. A U.S.-led naval task force has been responding to the assaults but has been unable to halt them entirely.

• Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to Washington this week to address a joint session of Congress and meet with President Biden, whose relationship with the Israeli leader has become more strained during the war. The prime minister’s office confirmed that Netanyahu and Biden will meet at noon on Tuesday, amid doubts about whether the meeting would take place because of Biden’s coronavirus diagnosis. Netanyahu’s address to lawmakers, at the invitation of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), is scheduled for Wednesday.
• Israeli troops are continuing operations inside Gaza, the IDF said. In the Rafah area, Israeli forces discovered “ready-to-fire mortar shells,” while an Israeli aircraft identified an opposition group of militants that was then “eliminated” by IDF troops, it added. Troops also located and dismantled tunnel shafts and underground infrastructure in the area of Tal al-Sultan, the IDF said. In the central Gaza Strip, IDF troops located “various types of weaponry,” it said.
• At least 38,983 people have been killed and 89,727 injured in Gaza since the war started, said the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 326 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.