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 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.