DUBAI: Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claimed a missile launch toward Israel early Saturday, their first since the war in the Middle East started. The Israeli military said it intercepted the projectile.
The now month-long war erupted after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, which retaliated with strikes against Israel and neighbouring Gulf Arab states.
The conflict has upended global air travel, disrupted oil exports and caused fuel prices to soar.
Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway, has exacerbated the economic fallout.
Israel struck Iran’s nuclear facilities hours after threatening to “escalate and expand” its campaign against Tehran on Friday. Iran vowed to retaliate and struck a base in Saudi Arabia, wounding more than a dozen US service members and damaging planes.
Before Saturday’s attack, there appeared to be a breakthrough as Tehran agreed to allow humanitarian aid and agricultural shipments through the strait.
Israeli airstrikes continued Saturday. Associated Press footage showed smoke rising from northeastern Tehran. Iran sent missiles toward Israel with loud booms heard in Jerusalem.
Houthi Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said on the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite television station Saturday that the Houthis launched a barrage of ballistic missiles toward what he described as “sensitive Israeli military sites” in southern Israel.
The attack came hours after Saree signalled in a vague statement Friday that the rebels would join the war.
Sirens went off around Israel’s southern city of Beer Sheba and near Israel’s main nuclear research centre as Iran and Hezbollah fired on Israel overnight.
Explosions filled the air in Tel Aviv, where Israel’s Fire and Rescue Service said it responded to 11 impact sites.
Saturday’s assault calls into question whether the Houthis will target commercial shipping in the Red Sea corridor, as they did during the Israel-Hamas war.
About USD 1 trillion worth of goods passed through the Red Sea annually before the war. The rebels also fired drones at Israel.
The involvement of the Houthis would complicate the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the aircraft carrier that sailed to Crete for repairs then to Split, Croatia, where it arrived on Saturday.
Sending the carrier to the Red Sea could draw it into similar attacks as experienced by the USS Dwight D Eisenhower in 2024 and the USS Harry S. Truman in the 2025 campaign against the Houthis.
The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014. Saudi Arabia launched a war against the Houthis on behalf of Yemen’s exiled government in 2015 and the rebels had thus far stayed out of the recent conflict due to their uneasy ceasefire with Saudi Arabia.
More than two dozen US troops have been wounded in Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base in the past week, according to two people who have been briefed on the matter.
Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at the base Friday, injuring at least 15 troops, including five seriously, according to the sources who were not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The base, about 96 kilometres from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, came under attack twice earlier in the week, including a strike that wounded 14 US troops, according to the people briefed on the matter. The base is run by the Royal Saudi Air Force but is also used by US troops.
The latest attacks happened after Trump claimed that talks on ending the war were going “very well”. He said he had given Tehran until April 6 to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran says it has not engaged in any negotiations.
With the economic repercussions from the war extending far beyond the Middle East, Trump is under growing pressure to end Iran’s chokehold on the strait.
Pakistan said Saturday that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt will send their top diplomats to Islamabad for talks aimed at ending the war.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Saturday that he and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian held “extensive discussions” on regional hostilities and efforts aimed at ending the war.
Also Saturday, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told his Turkish counterpart by phone that Iran was sceptical about recent diplomatic efforts to stop the war. Iranian state-run media reported that Araghchi accused the United States of making “unreasonable demands” and exhibiting “contradictory actions” that raised doubts about the prospect of an agreement.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff has said Washington delivered a 15-point “action list” to Iran for a possible ceasefire, with a proposal to restrict Iran’s nuclear programme and reopen the strait.
Tehran rejected the proposal and presented its own five-point proposal that included reparations and recognition of its sovereignty over the waterway.
Meanwhile, US ships drew closer to the region carrying some 2,500 Marines, and at least 1,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne who are trained to land in hostile territory to secure key positions and airfields have been ordered to the Middle East.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US “can achieve all of our objectives without ground troops”.
Iranian authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed in the Islamic Republic, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.