Houthis Attack Israel on Christmas; Second Missile in Two Nights

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile at Israel overnight on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, sending millions of Israelis into bomb shelters in the middle of the night for the second night in a row.

Though the missile was intercepted by Israel’s defenses outside domestic airspace, pieces of shrapnel fell on Israeli cities below.

“Sirens regarding rocket a missile launches were activated due to the possibility of falling shrapnel from the interception,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

The Times of Israel noted:

A ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis was intercepted by Israeli air defenses early Wednesday morning, the military said, marking the second night in a row — and the fourth in less than a week — that the Iran-backed terror group has fired at the country’s center in what has recently become a near-nightly occurrence.

The incoming missile set off sirens over a wide swath of central Israel, sending millions of people scrambling to reach bomb shelters. The sirens were activated as a precaution against falling fragments from the interception.

The alerts were issued in a wider area than usual as part of a new policy implemented by the Home Front Command, following delayed alerts in a previous attack.

The attack sparked exasperation among Israelis, after a third counterattack by Israel against the Houthis earlier this month apparently failed to deter the rebels or stop them from launching missiles.

Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, has threatened to target Houthi leaders in the next wave of attacks, but the task may be more difficult than it was regarding Hamas and Hezbollah, as Yemen is over 2,000 kilometers away from Israel.

The Houthis were delisted as a terror group by President Joe Biden shortly after he took office in 2021.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.