Cabinet approves response to Houthis, IDF investigates interception failure

The Houthi terrorist organization said on Sunday night that they are working on imposing a "comprehensive air blockade" on Israel by repeatedly targeting the country's airports.

Despite initial reluctance to an Israeli strike against Yemen, the US administration has come to understand that Israel will respond to the recent missile attacks launched from Yemen, an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post.

"The administration has never vetoed an Israeli strike, but the message was, 'We’re handling it,'" the official said, adding, "However, Washington now realizes that Israel can no longer remain passive."

Israel's response does not mean the end of US operations against the Houthis, however.

“The US military continues its operation against the Houthis, which has included over 1,000 strikes against these terrorists, and we will continue to coordinate with the Israeli government through diplomatic channels. The Trump Administration remains committed to ending the Houthis' capabilities to hijack freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.” NSC Spokesman James Hewitt told The Jerusalem Post.

The IDF's failure to shoot down the Houthi missile that struck the Ben-Gurion Airport area on Sunday morning was due to a technical error, IDF sources told The Jerusalem Post.

Further, this means that the error was not due to human error nor to any special new weapons which the Houthis might claim to have acquired.

The military said that since the beginning of the war, the Israel Air Force intercepted dozens of Houthi missiles at a success rate that exceeded 95%. 

The Israeli air force struck over 100 terror targets throughout Gaza over the weekend, including terrorist cells, tunnels, underground infrastructure sites, and military structures where terrorists were operating, the military announced Sunday. 

In northern Gaza, troops dismantled terror infrastructure above and below ground, discovered a Hamas weapons cache, and killed several terrorists in the area.

In southern Gaza, troops operated in Rafah along the Morag Corridor. The soldiers dismantled Hamas weaponry, killed terrorists, and struck terror infrastructure in cooperation with the Israeli air force.  

Following recent Houthi missile attacks, Israel is considering revising its recent policy toward Yemen to respond directly to such attacks, an Israeli source told The Jerusalem Post Sunday.

The IDF on Monday acknowledged that it had failed to penalize seven Golani Brigade soldiers who fled in the face of five Hamas invaders at Zikim Beach on October 7, 2023, abandoning civilians there to their deaths.

Two soldiers from the Yahalom Unit, Captain Noam Ravid and Staff Sergeant Yaly Seror, were killed in the Gaza Strip, the IDF said on Sunday morning.

In the same incident, an additional soldier from Yahalom was seriously wounded. 

Hamas released a propaganda video on Saturday that shows signs of life of hostage Maxim Herkin, an Israeli-Russian citizen abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7.

The IDF is sending out call-up orders for tens of thousands of reservists starting Sunday, on the road toward widening the Gaza invasion.

Also, the military said that the expansion would be in stages, signaling that it could take days or weeks before having a clearer picture of the strategy and impact of the IDF’s further invasion.

An explosion was heard at a power plant in the city of Karaj in Iran, according to footage shared on social media on Saturday night.