TEL AVIV (Dispatches) -- 
Israel temporarily suspended flights at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday after a missile attack from Yemen, Israeli media said.
A military statement said that a missile from Yemen triggered air-raid sirens in several areas including central occupied territories, greater Tel Aviv, and the western outskirts of Occupied Al-Quds. 
Israel’s Channel 12 said the missile targeted the Ben Gurion airport, prompting authorities to temporarily suspend flight operations.
The broadcaster said thousands of Israelis fled to shelters after the missile attack.
Following the sirens, Israeli police carried out field searches across Tel Aviv and Al-Quds as a precautionary measure.
“We targeted Ben Gurion Airport in the occupied Jaffa region with a hypersonic ballistic missile,” Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, said in a statement. 
“This operation was successful and caused millions of Zionists to flee to shelters and the cessation of operations at Ben Gurion Airport,” he said.
“We also carried out three drone operations against three vital targets of the Israeli enemy in the areas of Jaffa, Ashdod and Eilat,” he added. 
Saree also renewed Yemeni military ban on flights to the Tel Aviv airport, warning the international airliners that the airport is not safe.
The missile launch is part of a growing series of long-range operations carried out by Ansarallah, the Yemeni movement that has declared its alignment with the Palestinian people amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. 
Since late 2023, Ansarallah has targeted Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea and launched drones and ballistic missiles toward Israeli targets, describing its actions as direct responses to the Israeli onslaught in Gaza and the complicity of the United States.
Ansarallah has vowed to continue its operations so long as the war on Gaza persists, framing its involvement as part of a broader regional axis resisting Israeli aggression and Western support for it. 
The movement has emphasized that its strikes are intended to disrupt Israeli infrastructure and deliver a message of deterrence on behalf of the Palestinian people.
Deputy head of Yemen’s Ansarullah media office Nasruddin Amer said Sunday military pressure is the only way to force Israel to stop its genocide in Gaza.
Amer said that the Yemeni Armed Forces will do everything possible to escalate pressure on Israel in order to pave the way for ending the suffering of the oppressed residents of the Gaza Strip. 
Meanwhile, a senior defense ministry official said Yemen’s missiles are equipped with multiple warheads, which if intercepted, would split into several parts to hit more targets, effectively paralyzing Israel’s defense systems.
The unnamed official said that Yemen will halt retaliatory attacks only after Israel ends the war and lifts its siege on Gaza.