Israeli military investigating reported Houthi strike on airport near Eilatpublished at 16:40 British Summer Time
Kumar Malhotra
BBC Verify senior journalist
Image source, XSmoke seen rising from the airport in a video posted on X
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it’s looking into an incident on Sunday, external where a suspected Houthi drone hit an airport in southern Israel, near Eilat, a resort on the Gulf of Aqaba.
In a statement on X, the Houthi group confirmed it had targeted the Ramon airport, amongst other places in Israel. , external
Two people were injured and the airport was briefly shut, according to the Reuters news agency.
BBC Verify has seen video and images shared online which shows smoke rising from the airport complex, broken glass and damage to the inside of the airport building.
Using maps and images on Google and cross-referencing Israeli media reports, we’ve confirmed the footage was taken at the airport and is from Sunday.
Israel has a number of defence systems designed to detect and intercept incoming missiles and drones, which have been used to counter attacks from Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and Gaza.
The IDF says its preliminary enquiry showed the drone was detected, but not classified as “hostile”, and so was not intercepted.
There might be a number of reasons why this happened, according to David Heathcote, head of intelligence at UK-based McKenzie Intelligence Services. “It could be a technical, human or information processing error,” he says.
In May, a Houthi missile landed near the main terminal of Ben Gurion airport, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.