TEL AVIV, Israel (AFP) — A missile landed inside the perimeter of Israel’s main airport on Sunday, wounding six people, halting flights and gouging a wide crater, in an attack claimed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The Israeli military said “several attempts were made to intercept” the missile that was launched from Yemen, a rare Houthi attack that penetrated Israel’s air defenses.

A video issued by Israel’s police force showed officers standing on the edge of a deep crater with the control tower visible in the distance behind them. No damage was reported to airport buildings or runways.

The police reported a “missile impact” at Ben Gurion airport, Israel’s main international gateway.

An Agence France-Presse photographer said the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport’s largest, with the crater less than a kilometer away from the closest tarmac.

“You can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen meters wide and several dozen meters deep,” central Israel’s police chief, Yair Hezroni, said in the video shared by the force.

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

The attack was claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who say they act in support for Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza.

“The missile force of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion airport” with a “hypersonic ballistic missile,” the Houthis said in a statement, referring to their own forces.

Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated at least six people with light to moderate injuries.

An AFP journalist inside the airport at the time of the attack said he heard a “loud bang” at around 9:35 a.m., adding the “reverberation was very strong.”

“Security staff immediately asked hundreds of passengers to take shelter, some in bunkers,” the AFP journalist said.

“Many passengers are now waiting for their flights to take off, and others are trying to find alternative flights.”

An incoming Air India flight was diverted to Abu Dhabi, an airport official told AFP.

A passenger said the attack, which came shortly after air raid sirens sounded across parts of the country, caused panic.

“It is crazy to say but since October 7 we are used to this,” said the passenger, who did not want to be named, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

“A missile might come at any time and life stops for some time. Today at the airport there was panic and even I was scared, because the blast was big.”

Vow to hit back

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.

Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened a forceful response, saying: “Anyone who hits us, we will hit them seven times stronger.”

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who control swathes of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.

On Saturday, the Houthis claimed a third missile attack on Israel in two days.

The vast majority of missiles fired by the Houthis since the start of the Gaza war have been intercepted by Israeli air defenses.

The Yemeni rebels had paused their attacks during a recent two-month ceasefire in the Gaza war.

But in March, they threatened to resume attacks on international shipping over Israel’s aid blockade on the Gaza Strip.

The move triggered a response from the US military, which began hammering the rebels with near-daily air strikes starting 15 March in a bid to keep them from threatening shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

US strikes on the rebels began under former president Joe Biden, but intensified under his successor Donald Trump.

Since March, the United States says it has struck more than 1,000 targets in Yemen.