Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen toward Israel early Saturday, the first time it had faced fire from that country.
The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, which calls into question whether the rebel group backed by Tehran will again target commercial shipping traveling through the Red Sea corridor.
Sirens went off around Beer Sheba and the area near Israel’s main nuclear research center for the third time overnight Friday into Saturday as Iran and Hezbollah continued to fire on Israel overnight.
The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, and so far had stayed out of the war as the rebels have had an uneasy cease-fire for years with Saudi Arabia, which launched a war against the group on behalf of Yemen’s exiled government in 2015.
Attacks on vessels during the Israel-Hamas war upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion worth of goods passed each year before the war. The rebels also fired drones at Israel.
Israel struck Iran’s nuclear facilities hours after threatening to “escalate and expand” its campaign against Tehran on Friday.
Iran vowed to retaliate and struck a base in Saudi Arabia, wounding US service members and damaging planes.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued the claim in a statement Saturday on the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite television.
Saree said they fired a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting what he described as “sensitive Israeli military sites” in southern Israel.
The attack came hours after Saree signaled in a vague statement Friday that the rebels would join the war that shocked the region and rattled the global economy.
In 2024, the Trump administration launched strikes against the Houthis that ended weeks later. The US-led campaign against the Houthi rebels, overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, turned into the most intense running sea battle the Navy had faced since World War II.
The Houthi rebels attacked over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, from November 2023 until January 2025.
That would cause further chaos in global shipping, which already is reeling from Iran’s stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas once passed.
The potential involvement of the Houthis in the war also would complicate the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the aircraft carrier that went to port in Crete on Monday for repairs.
Sending the carrier back into the Red Sea could draw it into the same high tempo of attacks seen by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in 2024 and the USS Harry S. Truman in the 2025 American campaign against the Houthis.
Prior to the attack from Yemen, there appeared to be a breakthrough as Tehran agreed to allow humanitarian aid and agricultural shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, accepting a request from the UN Ali Bahreini, the country’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said Iran agreed to “facilitate and expedite” such movement.
The vital waterway usually handles a fifth of the world’s oil shipments and nearly a third of the world’s fertilizer trade. While markets and governments have largely focused on blocked supplies of oil and natural gas, the restriction of fertilizer ingredients and trade threatens farming and food security around the world.
“This measure reflects Iran’s continued commitment to supporting humanitarian efforts and ensuring that essential aid reaches those in need without delay,” Bahreini said on the social platform X. The U.N. earlier announced a task force to address the ripple effects that the war has had on aid delivery.
More than two dozen US troops have been wounded in Iranian attacks on a Saudi air base in the past week, according two people who have been briefed on the matter.
Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan air base in a Friday attack that injured at least 15 troops, including five seriously, according to the people who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The base had come under come attack twice earlier this week, including an incident that injured 14 US troops, according to the people who had been briefed on the matter.
Located about 96 kilometers (60 miles) from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the base is run by the Royal Saudi Air Force, but also used by US troops.
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