VIDEO: Israel says area of airport hit after Yemen missile launch

A missile launched from Yemen struck near Israel’s main international airport on Sunday, authorities said, an attack that briefly halted air traffic and triggered threats of retaliation.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the missile fire, which follows a series of attacks by Yemen’s Huthi rebels.

Police reported a “missile impact” near Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv after the military said that “several attempts were made to intercept” it.

It was not immediately clear whether the impact was caused by the Yemeni missile or by an interceptor.

Yair Hezroni, the police’s central district chief, said at the scene in a video released by the force that “you can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen metres (yards) wide and several dozen metres deep”.

The police footage showed officers standing at the edge of a crater in an orchard, with the airport’s control tower visible in the distance.

AFP journalists said they had heard explosions in the area of Jerusalem and the airport, after air raid sirens sounded in several parts of the country.

Israel’s airport authority said that “departures and arrivals have resumed” at Ben Gurion, a short while after they had been interrupted due to the missile fire.

The airport “is open and operational”, the aviation authority said in a statement.