TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) 鈥 A drone fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels breached Israel’s multilayered air defenses on Sunday and slammed into the country’s southern airport, the Israeli military said, blowing out glass windows, wounding one person and briefly shutting down commercial airspace.
The damage to Ramon Airport appeared limited and flights resumed within hours. The Houthis claimed responsibility for the strike.
The attack follows that killed the in a major escalation of the nearly 2-year-old conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in Yemen.
In Gaza City, the Israeli military on Sunday leveled another high-rise tower that housed hundreds of displaced Palestinians and urged people to move south as it intensified its offensive on the city.
Meanwhile, ruled that Israel was not providing Palestinian detainees in its custody with enough food to ensure basic sustenance. It ordered the state to 鈥済uarantee basic living conditions in accordance with the law鈥 for the thousands of Palestinians in its detention facilities.
Sunday’s ruling, made in response to a petition by among Palestinians in the country’s prisons, marked a rare instance of Israeli legal restraint on its own war policies that have .
Yemen’s Houthi rebels escalate attacks on Israel
After Israel’s killing of Houthi last Thursday, the militants vowed to escalate their attacks targeting Israel and the vital Red Sea trade route.
One of several Houthi drones launched from Yemen on Sunday slipped through Israel鈥檚 sophisticated defense system and crashed into the passenger terminal at the Ramon International Airport near the resort city of Eilat, the Israeli Airports Authority said, diverting flights over southern Israel and inflicting light shrapnel wounds on a 63-year-old man.
Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said the group had fired eight drones at Israel to signal that the rebels 鈥渨ill escalate their military operations and not back down from their support for Gaza.鈥 He warned that Israeli airports 鈥渁re unsafe and will be continuously targeted.鈥
The Israeli military said it intercepted three Houthi drones near Israel’s border with Egypt and was investigating why it failed to identify the fourth drone that struck Ramon Airport as a threat.
The Houthis have , including by deploying warheads with cluster munitions that scatter smaller bomblets over a large area and can evade Israeli air defenses.
Saying that they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians, the Houthis began firing missiles and drones into Israel after on Israel ignited the Israeli military鈥檚 devastating campaign in Gaza. Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted over 250 in their assault on southern Israel.
While frequent, the aerial attacks from Yemen have not caused significant damage in Israel.
Before Sunday’s assault, the most damaging Houthi attack was in May, when a , prompting international airlines to cancel flights to Tel Aviv for months.
Israel destroys another high-rise in Gaza City
The Israeli military said it razed another high-rise building in Gaza City on Sunday, shortly after military spokesperson Avichay Adraee ordered the evacuation of people from a seven-story building in a southern Gaza City neighborhood and nearby tents. Al-Ra鈥檌ya Tower crumbled in a flash, its facade cascading down into a heap of rubble and sending people scrambling for cover.
Israel said the building targeted on Sunday had been used by Hamas for intelligence-gathering activities. Hamas denied the accusation. It was unclear how many people had been killed or wounded in the attack.
as Israel to take control of what it portrays as Hamas’ last remaining stronghold, urging Palestinians to flee parts of Gaza City for a in the territory鈥檚 south.
Many Palestinians, exhausted from being displaced multiple time during the war, have opted to stay put rather than uproot themselves for jam-packed, increasingly unsanitary tent encampments that are unprepared to handle the influx. Others reluctantly fled have reinforced the feeling that nowhere is safe in the enclave.
鈥淓very time we move to a place, we get displaced from it,鈥 said Shireen Al-Lada鈥, who fled south from eastern Gaza City after her house in the once-bustling urban neighborhood of Zeitoun was destroyed.
Officials at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital reported that Israeli strikes on a school-turned-shelter and on tents and apartment buildings killed at least 13 Palestinians, including six children and three women.
The Israeli military said it was targeting militants near the school and had warned civilians to evacuate.
In central Gaza, Al-Awda Hospital said it had received five dead bodies, including that of a young girl, after Israel struck a gathering in the U.N.-administered Nuseirat refugee camp. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike.
Over 64,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry that does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It says that more than half the casualties are women and children.
Trump claims Israel accepted his ceasefire terms; Israel is silent
claimed on social media on Sunday that Israel accepted his terms for a ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to do the same. It was not clear precisely what those terms were.
鈥淚 have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting,鈥 Trump wrote. 鈥淭his is my last warning, there will not be another one!鈥 Trump has previously issued similar such ultimatums to Hamas.
There was no immediate Israeli confirmation of his claim, which came as preparations for the Israeli military鈥檚 advance on Gaza City move ahead and . The Israeli prime minister鈥檚 office did not respond to a request for comment.
Hamas confirmed it 鈥渞eceived through intermediaries some ideas from the U.S.鈥 and said it 鈥渨elcomed any initiative鈥 to end the war that involved the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
But the group said it had not dropped its insistence on a full-scale Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and formation of an independent Palestinian committee to administer Gaza’s civil affairs 鈥 conditions that Israel has rejected in the past. It also gave no indication it would disband its armed wing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted on Hamas鈥 full disarmament as a condition for a comprehensive ceasefire.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing many families of hostages, called on the Israeli government to 鈥渄eclare its unequivocal support for the emerging agreement.”
has outraged families of hostages and their supporters, who fear the ground offensive will further imperil the 20 out of 48 hostages in Gaza still thought to be alive.
Defying criticism at home and abroad, Netanyahu vowed at his Cabinet meeting earlier Sunday to press ahead with the assault, saying he’d rather 鈥渁 victory over our enemies鈥 than one 鈥渙ver anti-Israel propaganda.”
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Sally Abou Aljoud in Beirut, Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.
