Israel is signaling a wider campaign against Houthi militants in Yemen, a mountainous and impoverished country more than 1,000 miles from Israeli territory.

An American missile defense system was used for the first time to intercept a retaliatory attack launched by Yemen’s Houthis rebels at Israel’s central airport overnight as threats continue to escalate between the Jewish state and Iran’s terror proxies.

An airstrike, whose origin remains unidentified, struck Sanaa on Friday, following deadly Israeli raids the day before on rebel-controlled sites in Yemen, including the capital’s international airport.

An advanced U.S. military anti-missile system was used in Israel to try to intercept a projectile for the first time since President Joe Biden placed the system in Israel in October, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

One of America’s prized Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries fired an interceptor in combat for the first time Thursday. The system, forward-deployed in Israel, was employed against an incoming medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) fired by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen,

The American THAAD missile defense system intercepted a ballistic missile launched toward Israel from Yemen. This marks the first use of such a system by the Israeli military, according to Reuters and The Times of Israel.