Israel-Hamas War: What happened on day 345?

The ballistic missile fired by Yemen at Israel at 6:21 a.m. on Sunday morning was not a hypersonic missile as the Houthis have claimed, the IDF said Tuesday night.

Further, the IDF said that the missile was not an especially new advanced kind of maneuvering missile that could outwit Israel's air defense systems.

Rather, the IDF said that it fired multiple interceptors, including both the Arrow 2 and the Iron Dome, against the missile and that at least one interceptor struck the missile but failed to destroy it completely on impact.

The Iranian-backed Houthis claimed on Sunday to launch a hypersonic ballistic missile at Israel. While there is no evidence the claim is accurate, it is clear the Houthis managed to reach Israel with a missile. While the missile's flight path is not known, nor the particulars of its speed, the Houthis claimed it flew 2,040km in 11.5 minutes. The key claim of the missile being “hypersonic” is important to discuss because many countries and now even terrorist groups are claiming “hypersonic” capabilities.

The IDF has confirmed some aspects of the Houthi's claim. The IDF said that a surface-to-surface missile was fired from Yemen toward Israeli territory, and it was launched at 6:21am.

“An initial inquiry indicates the missile most likely fragmented in mid-air,” the IDF said. The sirens sounded in Israel at 6:32 am, meaning the flight time the Houthis claimed appears relatively accurate.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to exact a heavy price from the Houthis for its missile attack against central Israel on Sunday.

“This morning, the Houthis launched a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen into our territory,” Netanyahu told his government during its weekly meeting. 

“They should have known by now that we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us,” he stated.

“Those who need a reminder in this matter are invited to visit the port of Hodeidah,” Netanyahu said in a reference to an Israeli reprisal attack in July.

The IDF must occupy southern Lebanon to establish a "security corridor" against Hezbollah, Likud MK Ariel Kallner demanded in an interview with Maariv on Sunday.

The coalition lawmaker called on the government, led by his faction leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to address tensions along the northern border by conquering Lebanese lands, from the border to as far north as the Litani River.

"Our reality can no longer continue as is," Kellner told Maariv. "The sole, unavoidable conclusion is that the current border in the North is unsustainable."

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry stated on Sunday that the death toll in Gaza has reached 41,206 since the war started on October 7 of last year.

A further 95,337 have thus far been wounded in the conflict, the Gazan ministry added.

The number has not been independently verified, and the ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its toll.

The Hamas-run ministry has also been repeatedly criticized for distorting casualty figures.

In May, departing from Hamas’s reported figures, the UN halved the number of women and children it had previously reported had been killed thus far in the war.

Yemen's Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack that reached central Israel for the first time on Sunday, saying the group employed a "new hypersonic ballistic missile" in a "specific military operation" targeting the Tel Aviv area, in a statement from the group's military spokesperson.

The Iranian proxy falsely added that Israel had failed to intercept the missile. While the IDF's Arrow system failed to bring the missile down before entering Israeli airspace, it did ultimately intercept it.

"It crossed a distance of 2,040 km in 11 and a half minutes and caused a state of fear and panic among the Zionists, as more than two million Zionists headed to shelters for the first time in the history of the Israeli enemy," the military spokesperson added.

The IDF's call on residents of the Wazzani village in southern Lebanon to evacuate on Sunday was a local initiative and neither approved by senior IDF officials nor by the political echelon, Israeli media reported on Sunday. 

The message to evacuate, which was disseminated via leaflets, was an initiative reportedly taken by a local brigade of the IDF Northern Command. 

According to the reports, the military had opened an investigation into the matter. 

The IDF called on Sunday morning for the evacuation of the Wazzani village in southern Lebanon by 4 p.m. local time, according to Israeli media, citing local reports. 

Approximately 40 rockets crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon, the IDF said, following the alerts which sounded in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights starting at 8:19 a.m. local time.

A drone exploded in Metulla on Sunday morning after no sirens sounded in the area, Israeli media reported.