2026.10.10 - 19:55

More than a dozen ambulances were seen rushing to Riyadh's international airport, and travelers were evacuated from parts of the facility after a loud blast was heard there on Saturday, an eyewitness and people briefed on the matter said.

Axar.az reports, citing the Jerusalem Post, that Saturday's incident comes amid an escalation of missile strikes by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on the kingdom. The airport has already been attacked twice this week, leaving four people dead and others wounded, and badly damaging an aircraft.

The Saudi government's media office and the Saudi civil aviation authority did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident.

Flight tracking site Flightradar24 showed all flights to Riyadh had either been diverted or canceled, with only a helicopter hovering over the airport at one point.

The airport urged passengers to contact their airlines directly and check their flight status before heading there.

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Flights bound for Riyadh are being temporarily diverted to the international airports in the Saudi cities of Medina and Jeddah.

This information was provided by a source in air traffic control services.

The source added that there was currently no information on when the airport might resume operations.

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A missile strike on an airport has killed around 12 people and injured 50 others.

The Financial Times reported that some of the injured are in critical condition. Meanwhile, Riyadh’s largest hospitals have declared a state of emergency.

According to the newspaper, airport authorities carried out a medical evacuation after the missile struck one of the terminals.