A MISSILE fired by Yemen’s Houthi-led forces hit central Israel early today.

The attack triggered air raid sirens at its international airport, in the latest reverberation from the nearly year-long war in Gaza. 

Israeli media aired footage showing people racing to shelters in Ben Gurion International Airport.

The airport’s authority said it resumed normal operations shortly after the attack.

A fire could be seen in a rural area of central Israel, and local media showed images of what appeared to be a fragment from an interceptor that landed on an escalator in a train station in the central town of Modiin.

The Israeli military said it made several attempts to intercept the missile using its much vaunted air defences, but had not yet determined whether any had been successful.

But they said the sound of explosions in the area came from interceptors.

The Yemenis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, but nearly all of them have been intercepted over the Red Sea.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear that there was likely to be a military response to the Yemeni attack.

He said: “The Houthis should have known by now that we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us.”

Brigadier General Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Yemenis, said they fired a ballistic missile aimed at “a military target” in the area of Tel Aviv.

Hashim Sharaf al-Din, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run government, said Yemenis will celebrate the birthday of Islam's Prophet Muhammad while “the Israelis will have to be in shelters.”

The Yemenis have repeatedly attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea, particularly those linked to the United States and Britain, which have launched retaliatory air attacks on Yemen.

The Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza, which began after Hamas’s October 7 attack into southern Israel, has rippled across the region.

Iran, Lebanon and Syria have all been attacked by Israeli air strikes in recent months, leaving many to worry about the threat of a wider regional conflict.

The Israeli military said that around 40 projectiles were fired from Lebanon early Sunday, with most intercepted or falling in open areas.

In a separate incident, Israeli forces dropped leaflets over the Lebanese border town of al-Wazzani calling on residents to evacuate. 

The military later said there were no such evacuation orders, and that a local commander had acted without the approval of his superiors.