Missile hits Israel airport area in attack claimed by Houthis

A missile landed inside the perimeter of Israel's main airport on Sunday, wounding six people, halting flights and gouging a wide crater, in an attack claimed by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

- Agence France-Presse

TEL AVIV:

The Israeli military said "several attempts were made to intercept" the missile that was launched from Yemen, a rare Houthi attack that penetrated Israel's air defences.

A video issued by Israel's police force showed officers standing on the edge of a deep crater with the control tower visible in the distance behind them. No damage was reported to airport buildings or runways.

The police reported a "missile impact" at Ben Gurion airport, Israel's main international gateway.

An AFP photographer said the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport's largest, with the crater less than a kilometre away from the closest tarmac.

"You can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen metres (yards) wide and several dozen metres deep," central Israel's police chief, Yair Hezroni, said in the video shared by the force.

It was not immediately clear whether the impact was caused by the Yemeni missile or by an interceptor.

The attack was claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels, who say they act in support for Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza.

"The missile force of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion airport" with a "hypersonic ballistic missile", the Houthis said in a statement, referring to their own forces.