Israel’s Multilayered Defense Systems Fail  

SANAA (Dispatches) -- 
Yemen’s armed forces on Sunday launched a hypersonic ballistic missile that flew around 2,000km from Yemen to central occupied territories, evading Israel’s air defense systems and sparking a fire not far from Tel Aviv.
The attack triggered air raid sirens at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, in the latest reverberation from the nearly yearlong Israel war on Gaza. Israeli media aired footage showing people racing to shelters at the airport.  
A fire could be seen in a rural area, and local media showed images of what appeared to be parts of a missile that damaged a train station in the central town of Modiin.
Yemen’s military spokesman Yahya Saree said the missile struck an Israeli military target in Jaffa in central occupied territories. The missile, he said, travelled a distance of 2,040 kilometers (1,260 miles) in just 11 1/2 minutes and successfully hit its target, with Israeli air defenses failing to intercept it.
“Geographical obstacles, U.S.-UK aggression, and espionage and interception systems will not prevent Yemen from supporting Palestine,” he added.
The Israeli air force said it would investigate how the missile managed to travel so far without being intercepted.
Israel should expect more strikes in the future “as we approach the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 operation, including responding to its aggression on the city of Hudaydah,” Saree said.
The deputy head of Ansarullah media office, Nasruddin Amer, said in a post on X on Sunday that the missile had reached Israel after “20 missiles failed to intercept” it, describing it as the “beginning”.
The Israeli military said it made several attempts to intercept the missile using its multitiered air defenses, but had not yet determined what had happened. It said the incident is still under review.  
Hamas praised the attack, vowing that Israel “will not enjoy security unless it ceases its brutal aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip”. He added that “the enemy’s defenses failed to intercept it”.
Yemen’s armed forces have been targeting ships that are Israeli-owned, flagged, operated, or heading to Israeli occupied ports in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden with missiles and drones in solidarity with Gaza, which has been under a devastating Israeli onslaught since last Oct. 7.
In July, a drone launched by the Yemenis struck Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding 10 others. Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes on Yemen, including the port city of Hudaydah.

With the U.S. and UK launching airstrikes against Yemen, the country declared that it considers all American and British ships military targets.
International carriers have canceled flights into and out of occupied territories on a number of occasions since the start of the war, adding to the conflict’s economic toll on Israel. 
According to the Israeli Institute for Security Studies, Yemen has successfully enhanced its missile capabilities, now able to strike central occupied territories. 
Yemeni drones demonstrated their lethal effectiveness in the recent attack on Tel Aviv, which occurred just before the bombing of Hudaydah port by Israel, said the security think tank. 
“This is serious and demonstrates that despite all efforts to counter them, the Houthis not only have the capacity to strike Israel but have also upgraded their launch abilities to reach the centre of the country,” said the report’s author, referring to Yemen’s Ansarullah fighters.