TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — 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 Israeli strikes on Yemen's rebel-held capital that killed the Houthi prime minister and other top officials 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, a breakthrough Israeli Supreme Court decision ruled that Israel was not providing Palestinian detainees in its custody with enough food to ensure basic sustenance. It ordered the state to “guarantee basic living conditions in accordance with the law” for the thousands of Palestinians in its detention facilities.
Sunday's ruling, made in response to a petition by Israeli human rights groups alleging starvation among Palestinians in the country's prisons, marked a rare instance of Israeli legal restraint on its own war policies that have drawn indignation and outrage abroad.
Yemen's Houthi rebels escalate attacks on Israel
After Israel's killing of Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi last Thursday, the militants vowed to escalate their attacks targeting Israel and merchant ships navigating the vital Red Sea trade route.
One of several Houthi drones launched from Yemen on Sunday slipped through Israel’s 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 “will escalate their military operations and not back down from their support for Gaza.” He warned that Israeli airports “are unsafe and will be continuously targeted.”
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 stepped up their aerial attacks on Israel in recent months, 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 Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel ignited the Israeli military’s 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 Houthi missile struck near Israel’s main Ben Gurion Airport, 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’iya 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.
It's the third Gaza City high-rise leveled in as many days as Israel ramps up its offensive to take control of what it portrays as Hamas' last remaining stronghold, urging Palestinians to flee parts of Gaza City for a designated humanitarian zone in the territory’s 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 even as past Israeli attacks on humanitarian zones have reinforced the feeling that nowhere is safe in the enclave.
“Every time we move to a place, we get displaced from it,” said Shireen Al-Lada’, 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
U.S. President Donald Trump 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.
“I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting,” Trump wrote. “This is my last warning, there will not be another one!” 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’s advance on Gaza City move ahead and negotiations remain at an impasse. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Hamas confirmed it “received through intermediaries some ideas from the U.S.” and said it “welcomed any initiative” 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 — 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’ 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 “declare its unequivocal support for the emerging agreement."
Netanyahu's plan to take control of Gaza City 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 “a victory over our enemies” than one “over 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.