Israel says it launched airstrikes against the positions of Yemen's Houthis in Sanaa on Sunday, shortly after the group fired a ballistic missile allegedly armed with a cluster bomb warhead at Israel.
The Israeli military said the strikes hit “military infrastructure of the Houthi terrorist regime” in the Sanaa area, including a military site housing the presidential palace, the Hizaz and Asar power plants, and a fuel storage facility.
Israeli media reported that 10 Air Force jets took part in the strikes in Sanaa, dropping about 35 munitions.
Earlier on Sunday, Israeli media reported that an investigation by the Israeli military found that Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militant group used a ballistic missile armed with a cluster bomb warhead in its attack on Israel on Friday.
One of the munitions from the strike hit the yard of a house in the central Israeli town of Ginaton, causing minor damage.
The reports said that while an investigation is under way by the Israeli military into the failure to intercept the missile, the probe is not related to the type of warhead it carried.
Reuters reported citing an Israeli Air Force official as saying on Sunday that the missile most likely carried several sub-munitions “intended to be detonated upon impact.”
“This is the first time this type of missile has been launched from Yemen,” the official was quoted as saying.
A day earlier, Ynet wrote that Israeli Air Force is probing why defenses failed to stop Houthi missile that struck near Tel Aviv, and whether it carried cluster munitions like those Iran used in June war.
Such payloads complicate interception and increase the risk of civilian harm.
Five interceptor systems, including THAAD, Arrow, David’s Sling and Iron Dome, engaged the projectile, which initial reviews suggest fragmented in mid-air, Ynet quoted authorities as saying.
Familiar Iranian design
One of the best-known weapons of this type is the Iranian Khorramshahr-4, unveiled in May 2023, with the capacity to scatter dozens of small warheads resembling Grad rockets. Tehran says it can carry a payload of up to two tons over a range of 2,000 kilometers.
During the June war, Iran launched missiles fitted with submunitions designed to disperse small explosives over urban areas to maximize civilian harm.
The Houthis, who control much of Yemen’s population, announced a maritime blockade in the Red Sea in November 2023 after a call by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to support Hamas in Gaza. Since then, they have fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones toward Israel.
Most were intercepted, but in May another missile came close to Ben Gurion’s perimeter. The military said its probe would examine how to adapt defenses against cluster-type payloads, which pose a growing challenge as Iran’s allies escalate attacks.
“We can impose restrictions against the United States, France, Britain and Germany in the Strait of Hormuz and not allow them to navigate,” Hossein Shariatmadari, the representative of Ali Khamenei in the hardline Kayhan newspaper told state broadcaster.
“Just by announcing such a restriction, the oil price will surge to $200, and the biggest economic blow will be dealt to the enemy.”
This is not the first time Shariatmadari has raised the prospect of using Hormuz as leverage. Last year, after European sanctions on Iranian airlines, he urged the closure of the waterway to tankers and cargo ships from “hostile countries.”
At the time, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran had not issued such a threat despite acknowledging it had the capacity to do so.
Other Iranian officials returned to the theme after US strikes on nuclear facilities earlier this year.
Closing the strait would be disastrous for Iran itself, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned in June.
“If they do that, it will be another terrible mistake. It’s economic suicide for them,” he said, urging China to pressure Tehran against such a move.
Any Iranian closure of Hormuz would be “extremely dangerous,” European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in June, while UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy described it as “a monumental act of self-harm, making a diplomatic solution even harder.”
Global artery under strain
The Strait of Hormuz carries about one-fifth of the world’s oil exports. Iran has never attempted a full closure, but it has disrupted shipping through repeated seizures of commercial vessels.
“Europe and the United States would get miserable” if Tehran restricted oil flows, the Revolutionary Guards–linked Javan newspaper wrote in July, citing a shipping industry figure.
“Even countries with no link to the Iran-Israel war will suffer losses.”
The paper added that greater instability in the Middle East would drive up shipping and insurance costs globally.
Iran’s military loaded naval mines onto vessels in the Persian Gulf after Israeli strikes in June, though the mines were not deployed, according to Reuters.
US officials said the move indicated Tehran was weighing a serious escalation that could cripple global commerce.
Iran’s parliament approved a measure to close the strait in June following US airstrikes, state media reported, though the measure was not binding.