Saudi Civil Defense says two Houthi missiles fired toward Mecca and Medina regions were intercepted; Houthi spokesman denies targeting holy cities

As of 3:40 p.m. ET, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026

Saudi Arabia's Civil Defense said Saturday that fragments fell after the interception of two ballistic missiles that it said were fired by Yemen's Houthis toward the Mecca and Medina regions. The Houthis' military spokesman, Yahya Saree, denied that his forces had fired toward the holy cities.

The Saudi account

An official Civil Defense spokesman said Civil Defense teams in the Mecca and Medina regions responded on Saturday to fragments falling from the interception of two ballistic missiles "launched by the terrorist Houthi militia toward the Mecca and Medina regions," according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) (translated from Arabic). SPA first posted the statement on X at 12:56 p.m. ET, and Civil Defense posted it on its own account at 1:09 p.m. ET.

The interception caused parts of the two missiles to fall in Wadi al-Mughammas in Mecca, and debris from the interception to fall on the Al-Nuzha district of Jeddah, Wadi Jalil in Taif governorate and the Mastoura center in Rabigh governorate, the spokesman said, according to SPA (translated from Arabic). "The approved procedures for such cases were carried out," the statement said.

The Houthi denial

At 1:57 p.m. ET, Saree posted on X that Yemen's armed forces, as the Houthi-run military calls itself, "affirm that what the Saudi enemy is promoting about our forces targeting the holy areas of Mecca and Medina is a great and enormous slander" and that "these lies and claims no longer deceive anyone" (translated from Arabic). "Our operations target its oil facilities and military bases, and we announce them at the time," he wrote.

Earlier Houthi claims

About an hour before the Saudi statement, at 12:00 p.m. ET, Saree posted a statement claiming seven missile and drone operations in Saudi Arabia, which he described as a response to Saudi airstrikes on Yemen. Among the targets he named were the Rabigh oil refinery, Aramco in Yanbu, crude oil pumping stations and the East-West crude pipeline, King Khalid Airport in Riyadh, King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Najran Airport and the Khamis Mushait air base (translated from Arabic). The statement gave no dates for the individual operations. Those are Houthi claims.

Related: Yemen's government says Houthi missiles hit Coast Guard sites in Aden; Houthi-run ministry reports deaths from strikes in Sanaa.

What is not known

Where the missiles were launched from and where they were intercepted is not known from the statements reviewed for this story.