Israel's defense minister threatened on Sunday a forceful response to a missile fired from Yemen that the army said impacted near the country's main international airport.
"Anyone who hits us, we will hit them seven times stronger," Israel Katz said in a statement.
A missile launched from Yemen struck near Israel's main international airport on Sunday, authorities said, an attack that briefly halted air traffic and triggered threats of retaliation.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the missile fire, which follows a series of attacks by Yemen's Houthis. Later during the day, the Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they were acting in support for Palestinians in Gaza.
"The missile force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion Airport" with a "hypersonic ballistic missile", the Houthis said in a statement, referring to their own ranks.
"The missile successfully hit its target," the Iran-backed group said, adding that the attack was conducted "in support of the oppressed Palestinian people and their mujahideen", or fighters.
The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas praised the attack. "Yemen... escalates its attacks on the heart of the illegitimate Zionist entity, surpassing the most advanced defense systems in the world and striking its targets with precision," Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.
Police reported earlier a "missile impact" near Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv after the military said that "several attempts were made to intercept" it.
It was not immediately clear whether the impact was caused by the Yemeni missile or by an interceptor.
Yair Hezroni, the police's central district chief, said at the scene in a video released by the force that "you can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen meters (yards) wide and several dozen meters deep".
The police footage showed officers standing at the edge of a crater in an orchard, with the airport's control tower visible in the distance.
AFP journalists said they had heard explosions in the area of Jerusalem and the airport, after air raid sirens sounded in several parts of the country.
Israel's airport authority said that "departures and arrivals have resumed" at Ben Gurion, a short while after they had been interrupted due to the missile fire.
The airport "is open and operational", the aviation authority said in a statement.
On Saturday, the Houthis claimed a third missile attack on Israel in two days.
The vast majority of missiles fired by the Houthis since the start of the Gaza war in 2023 have been intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
The Yemeni rebels had paused their attacks during a recent two-month ceasefire in the Gaza war.
But in March, they threatened to resume attacks on international shipping over Israel's aid blockade on the Gaza Strip.
The move triggered a response from the US military, which began hammering the rebels with near-daily air strikes starting March 15 in a bid to keep them from threatening shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
US strikes on the rebels began under former president Joe Biden, but intensified under his successor, Donald Trump.
Since March, the United States says it has struck more than 1,000 targets in Yemen.
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