Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen launched a fresh aerial attack towards Israel’s southern resort town of Eilat. The missiles were intercepted before they could reach the port city or cause any damage.

Sources confirm that two cruise missiles and one surface-to-surface missile were fired towards Israel from the Red Sea area. The Arrow long-range air defense system was instrumental in neutralizing at least one of these threats, successfully intercepting it at the “optimal operational moment and location,” as stated by the IDF.

In a related incident earlier that day, IDF jets were mobilized in response to aerial threats over the Red Sea. These threats were also neutralized before breaching Israeli airspace.

Abdel-Aziz bin Habtour, the Prime Minister of the Iran-backed Houthi government, took responsibility for a prior drone strike aimed at Israel. He asserted the strike was retaliation for Israel’s military actions against Hamas in Gaza. Emphasizing the connection, bin Habtour remarked on the Hezbollah-linked Lebanese network Al-Mayadeen that “Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian people, and they cannot be separated from the resistance.”

The Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, in a televised address, mentioned that a “large number” of ballistic missiles and drones had been directed towards Israel. He ominously warned that this was just the third such operation and more would follow.

The morning of the attack, the IDF identified an “aerial target” nearing Israeli territory, setting off air raid sirens near Eilat. The military has assured there was no danger to the general public, and subsequent loud explosions confirmed the interception of the hostile craft before it invaded Israeli airspace.

Eilat’s Mayor, Eli Lankri, while speaking to Ynet, expressed his familiarity with the threat and emphasized that the city’s defense mechanisms had been substantially upgraded in the preceding days.

In a cryptic move, Hazam al-Assad, a representative of the Houthi rebels’ Supreme Political Council, hinted at the group’s involvement in the aircraft intrusion, playfully pointing out the word ‘suspicion’ used by Al-Jazeera in their reporting.

Last week, Eilat experienced similar threats when rockets were detected in its vicinity. Though alarms were not raised due to the assessment that the rockets wouldn’t hit populated areas, Hamas took responsibility for launching them at the city.

This latest aggression is part of a concerning pattern. Just last week, the Air Force intercepted two missiles over the Red Sea, one of which unfortunately crashed in the Egyptian resort town of Taba, close to Eilat, wounding six people. The other missile landed south of Taba in Nuweiba. Two weeks prior, Yemeni Houthi rebels fired cruise missiles and drones towards Israel. These too were intercepted by a U.S. warship.

This uptick in aggression from the Houthi rebels and their decision to target Israel directly adds another dimension to the already complex geopolitical tensions in the region, another arm of the Iranian “octopus” and its aggression in the region.