CAIRO, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates said it intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Yemen by Houthi rebels on Monday night as the Gulf’s top monarchy welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog for the first time.
The missile was intercepted, destroyed, and its debris fell in an uninhabited area, the Mirati defense minister said. He did not specify whether the projectile was aimed at Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates, or Duba, its great economic and tourist pole.
The Emirates Civil Aviation Authority said air traffic was undisturbed by the attack.
The United Arab Emirates participate alongside Saudi Arabia in a coalition that has been intervening militarily since the spring of 2015 against the Houthi rebels, supported by Iran.
On January 17, the Houthis launched a strike on Abu Dhabi, near the airport, which left several dead and wounded, after several interventions in Yemen by militias supported by the Emirates on the front line where the Shiite rebels had advanced last year.
Isaac Herzog spent the night in Abu Dhabi, an Israeli official said, and will continue his visit to the Emirates, which signed normalization agreements with the Jewish state in 2020. (Report Omar Fahmy, Mahmoud Mourad and Dan Williams; French version Jean-Stphane Brosse)