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The Israeli military said it had intercepted an unmanned vehicle a day after President Trump said the U.S. would step back from conflict with the Iran-backed group.
By Lara Jakes
Lara Jakes has written about Middle East diplomacy for more than a decade.
May 7, 2025, 7:10 a.m. ET
Israel said it had shot down a drone that was approaching from the east on Wednesday, as Houthi officials in Yemen vowed to continue attacking the country a day after President Trump said the United States would stop bombing the Iran-backed group.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the drone was intercepted by the air force and sirens blared as it approached. It was not immediately clear who launched the drone. But the Houthi militia group reiterated that it would continue to attack Israel, both to avenge attacks in Yemen and because of the war in Gaza.
“We cannot accept Yemen being targeted and violated without a response,” Mohamed Abdelsalam, a spokesman for the group, told Al Jazeera, the Qatari broadcaster, echoing comments by a senior Houthi politician on Tuesday. “We will continue to respond to the Israeli entity by all available means.”
Israeli fighter jets have bombed several sites across Yemen this week, killing at least seven people, according to casualty reports, and disabling the country’s main international airport. Khaled Al-Shaif, the director of the airport in Sana, Yemen’s capital, said the attack had caused $500 million worth of damage, destroyed three planes and forced flights to be suspended indefinitely.
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Israel said the airport attack was in response to a Houthi ballistic missile strike near Ben-Gurion International Airport, outside Tel Aviv, on Sunday. Multiple airlines have temporarily suspended flights in response to the attack, which wounded at least six people.
