SANAA, Nov 2 — Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Wednesday said they launched a drone attack towards Israel, the latest in a spate of such raids since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

"The Yemeni armed forces launched a large batch of drones during the past hours at several targets... in occupied Palestine, and they reached their goals,” said a Huthi military statement.

"The Yemeni armed forces will continue to carry out their military operations in support” of the Palestinian people, the statement added.

The latest attack came a day after the Houthis pledged more attacks against Israel if its war on Hamas in Gaza continues, saying it had already fired drones and ballistic missiles in three separate operations.

The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 and control large swathes of the country. They have previously carried out strikes on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which carried out a military campaign against them.

On Tuesday, the Houthis claimed an attack with drones and ballistic missiles on Israel.

Israel’s military said a "hostile aircraft intrusion” had set off warning sirens in Eilat, its Red Sea resort.

It later said it had intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired toward Israeli territory.

Israel had blamed the Houthis for another drone attack on Friday, saying its aircraft had intercepted "hostile targets” headed for the south of the country.

At the same time, six people were lightly injured when debris hit a building across the border from Eilat in the neighbouring Egyptian resort of Taba, the Egyptian army said at the time.

On October 19, the US Navy said it shot down three land-attack cruise missiles and several drones fired by the Houthis, possibly at Israel.

Israel has been pounding Gaza since the October 7 attack when Hamas gunmen stormed across the border and, according to Israeli officials, killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped more than 230 others.

Israel’s retaliatory bombing campaign has killed 8,796 people, mainly women and children, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.

Concerns are high over a regional conflagration.

Besides Yemen, Iran — which financially and militarily backs Hamas but insists it had no involvement in the October 7 attack — also has loyalists and proxy fighters in Iraq and Syria.

Since the Gaza conflict began, there have been a string of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria as well as almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army. — AFP