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Francine Wolfisz and Lettice Bromovsky – Daily Mail Sept 28, 2024

Houthi rebels claim they fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv airport as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was landing back in Israel – and just hours after a series of devastating airstrikes on Beirut resulted in the death of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Netanyahu was swift to shrug off the near-miss with an address to the nation shortly afterwards in which he justified Israel’s actions and said they had ‘settled the score’ with the death of Nasrallah, a man he described as ‘the arc murderer’.

He also remained unrepentant after a series of IDF strikes on Friday and Saturday left Beirut a smouldering city and said Israel will ‘continue to strike our enemies’ while continuing to press for the release of the more than 100 hostages remaining in Gaza

Warning there would be more to come, Netanyahu defiantly said: ‘There is no place in Iran nor the Middle East where the long arm of Israel cannot reach.’

His comments came as air raid sirens sounded across central Israel on Saturday afternoon, including in Tel Aviv, in the aftermath of the Houthi attempt.

Large explosions were heard after a missile was fired from Yemen and intercepted, the Israeli military said.

Yemen’s Houthi militants confirmed later that they had fired a ballistic missile at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.

They said the attack was timed to coincide with the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned to the country on Saturday after addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.

There has been no news of damage or casualties caused by the missile.

Shortly after 8pm on Saturday, sirens also sounded in the Jerusalem region following reports of a missile launched from Lebanon into Israeli territory.

It is understood a missile hit an area in the West Bank, sparking a fire near the Mitzpe Hagit outpost and causing power outages, Times of Israel reports.

Netanyahu had been in the United States on Friday to address the UN General Assembly.

Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a statement: ‘The operation was carried out with a Palestine 2 ballistic missile.

‘The Yemeni armed forces – along with all the honourable and free people of the nation – continue to respond to the crimes of the Israeli enemy, and will not hesitate to raise the level of escalation in response to the requirements of the stage and participate in the defence of Gaza and Lebanon.

‘These operations will cease only after the cessation of the aggression against Gaza and Lebanon.’

The action came as Iran’s supreme leader chillingly vowed the killing of Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah and a senior Iranian commander ‘shall not go unavenged’.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is thought to have been moved to a secure location, said on Saturday that Nasrallah would be avenged and his path in fighting Israel would be continued by other militants, as he announced five days of mourning in Iran.

‘(Nasrallah) was not an individual. He was a path and a school of thought and the path will be continued,’ Ayatollah Khamenei said in a statement read on state television.

‘The blood of the martyr shall not go unavenged,’ he said.

New details emerging on Saturday night suggest the IDF bombarded Nasrallah’s command bunker with more than 80 bombs in an operation organised at the last minute, The Sun reports.

It is understood the IDF had a ‘use it or lose it moment’ in which to kill Nasrallah, who was in a bunker 50 metres underground, after intelligence reported he would soon move to a different location.

The IDF unrelentingly pounded the Hezbollah headquarters in Dahieh with a barrage of explosives over just a few minutes on Friday.

Nasrallah was killed in the strikes alongside the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in the south of the country, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy, Hussein Ahmad Ismail.

 

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