The Houthis announced a blockade on Ben-Gurion Airport and warned major airlines against flying to Israel on Saturday.
“After the success of our Yemeni Armed Forces in cutting off Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, a blockade is imposed on Ben-Gurion Airport in occupied Palestine,” the terror group said on X/Twitter.
The announcement comes after the Yemeni terrorist organization fired multiple ballistic missiles toward Israel in the past week.
The Houthis targeted Jerusalem with missiles for the third time in two months on Friday.
Red alert sirens sounded across Israel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv’s surrounding suburbs due to a ballistic missile that was fired from Yemen Friday night.
The missile was intercepted by the IAF before it crossed into Israeli territory. However, fragments of an interception reportedly fell in the town of Dhahiriya near Hebron, Army Radio said, citing Palestinian reports.
The Houthis warned Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines, Air France, British Airways, United Airlines, and easyJet against flying to Israel for “everyone’s safety.”
Houthis target Ben-Gurion Airport
The organization wrote that any other airlines flying to Ben-Gurion Airport would also be targeted.
“Please take the decision of the Yemeni Armed Forces seriously, as Ben-Gurion Airport is no longer safe until the aggression on Gaza stops,” the statement read.
The group’s military spokesman has also said, without providing evidence, that the Houthis had launched attacks against the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea.
According to reports by the Associated Press and Politico citing US officials, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he will send a second aircraft carrier to accompany it in the Middle East region.
The second one will reportedly be the USS Carl Vinson, which had been based in the Pacific Ocean, the report said.
The Associated Press cited the official saying the defense secretary ordered the Truman to remain in the Middle East for at least another month, as it was initially supposed to return to Virginia at the end of March. The report also said the Vinson was expected to arrive in the region next month.
The Vinson moving to accompany the Truman would be the second time that two carrier ships would be stationed in the Middle East in the past six months, the report noted. Before moving toward the Middle East, it was conducting exercises with South Korean and Japanese forces, according to the report.
“The minute the Houthis say, ‘We’ll stop shooting at your ships, [and] we’ll stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end, but until then, it will be unrelenting,” Hegseth said earlier this week, adding that the airstrikes are to get the Islamic Republic of Iran’s attention, according to a US Department of Defense statement.
Reuters contributed to this report.