According to media reports, the Israeli army failed to completely destroy Houthi ballistic missiles

JERUSALEM

Preliminary investigations by the Israeli Air Force have shown that the Arrow defense system successfully intercepted but did not completely destroy a ballistic missile fired by the Yemeni Houthi group on Sunday morning, Israeli media reports.

Despite the interception, the missile landed in an open field near Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, reports said.

Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli military announced that it had launched an investigation into the performance of its air defense systems in response to the surface-to-surface ballistic missile attack.

The missile fired by the Houthis targeted central Israel, slightly injuring nine people as they fled to shelters. Fires broke out in nearby forests and a large cement factory also caught fire, probably due to debris from the interceptor missiles, media reports said.

Channel 12 said an initial investigation by the Israeli army found that although several Arrow system interceptor missiles were deployed, the Houthi missile was not completely destroyed as expected.

The system is said to have disassembled the rocket, but parts of it still fell to the ground. The investigation is now focusing on whether a technical malfunction prevented the system from fully intercepting the rocket.

The Arrow missile defense system, developed by Boeing with US support, is designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles.

There are three versions: Arrow 1, Arrow 2 and the advanced Arrow 3, which can intercept missiles outside the atmosphere.

The system works by hitting targets directly, rather than exploding in their vicinity like other systems.

The Houthi group claimed responsibility for the attack and said it had attacked a military base in the central Israeli city of Jaffa with a hypersonic missile with a range of over 2,000 kilometers.

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened the Houthi group with harsh retaliation and vowed that he would “impose a heavy price on them.”

*Written by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul

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