JERUSALEM/GAZA: A Yemeni rebel missile triggered a rush to shelters in the Zionist entity on Sunday, an incident that added to regional tensions nearly a year into the Gaza war. Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the rebels will pay a “heavy price”. AFP photographers saw firefighters putting out a brush fire near Lod and broken glass at a train station in Modin, about 20 km southeast of Tel Aviv after the attack.

The Houthi rebels claimed the strike. They are among Iran-backed groups in the Middle East that have been drawn into the conflict after war began in October between the Zionist entity and Hamas Palestinian fighters in Gaza. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group struck with a new hypersonic ballistic missile that traveled 2,040 km in just 11 ½ minutes.

“The Houthis launched a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen into our territory. They should have known by now that we charge a heavy price for any attempt to harm us,” Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting, according to a statement from his office. The rebels had targeted a Zionist “military position” in the Jaffa area, around Tel Aviv, using a “ballistic missile that succeeded in

reaching its target”, Saree said in a video statement. He added that “the enemy’s defenses failed to intercept it”.

In July, the Houthis claimed a drone strike that penetrated the Zionist entity’s intricate air defenses and killed a person in Tel Aviv, at least 1,800 km from Yemen. This time, the Zionist military said an initial inquiry indicates the missile fired from Yemen probably fragmented in mid-air. Sirens sounded, the military said, leading to what local media described as a scramble for shelter in the greater Tel Aviv area. A paramedic service said several people were slightly injured while “on their way to shelters”. Zionist police said they were at the scene near Shfela, east of Tel Aviv, where a fragment of an air defense interceptor had come down.

A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian Islamist movement had ample resources to continue fighting the Zionist entity despite losses sustained over more than 11 months of war in Gaza. Gaza’s civil defense agency on Sunday reported Zionist air strikes killed at least three people in central Gaza and another around Gaza City. The Zionist military campaign has killed at least 41,206 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.

“The resistance has a high ability to continue,” Osama Hamdan told AFP during an interview in Istanbul. “There were martyrs and there were sacrifices... but in return there was an accumulation of experiences and the recruitment of new generations into the resistance.” “The number of casualties... is much less than what is expected in a battle of this size, level and breadth,” Hamdan said on Sunday. Hamdan said the United States, the Zionist entity’s most important military backer, was not doing enough to force concessions from Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the bloodshed. “The American administration does not exert sufficient or appropriate pressure on the (Zionist) side,” Hamdan said. “Rather it is trying to justify the (Zionist) side’s evasion of any commitment.”

Hamdan said the Houthi attack showed the limits of the Zionist entity’s ability to defend itself, including its oft-touted aerial defense system. “It is a message to the entire region that (the Zionist entity) is not an immune entity,” Hamdan said. “Even (Zionist) capabilities have limits.” Hamdan also reiterated Hamas’ view that an attack earlier this month in which a Jordanian truck driver shot dead three Zionist guards at a border crossing underscored widespread anger at the Zionist entity in the region.

As for Arab leaders who have normalized diplomatic ties with the Zionist entity or are considering doing so, Hamdan said they should ask themselves how they would feel if their countries were occupied and the world stood by and watched. “If you see (the Zionist entity) as a blessing and a gain... give them a piece of your country,” he said, jokingly adding that it could be called “the new (Zionist entity)”.

Hamdan said on Sunday it was impossible to imagine a scenario in which Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar would leave the besieged territory. Sinwar and other leaders “are ready to be martyred thousands of times in Palestine rather than leaving it because everything he is doing is to free Palestine,” Hamdan said. Hamdan said that Hamas wants “joint Palestinian rule” in Gaza, adding that Hamas officials and representatives of other Palestinian factions would meet soon in Cairo to discuss their post-war vision. “The day after the battle is a Palestinian day,” he said.

On the Zionist entity’s northern flank, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement has traded regular cross-border fire with Zionist forces in exchanges that threaten to spiral into all-out war. On Sunday morning about 40 projectiles were fired from Lebanon towards the Zionist entity’s Upper Galilee region and the annexed Golan Heights, the Zionist military said. Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem said on Saturday his group has “no intention of going to war” but if the Zionist entity does “unleash” one “there will be large losses on both sides” and “hundreds of thousands more displaced”. – Agencies