The Iran-backed Houthi militia claimed responsibility for a rare drone attack in central Tel Aviv that crashed into a building near the United States Embassy branch office early Friday, killing at least one person and wounding eight others.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, told reporters that Israel’s defense systems had apparently picked up the drone but failed to register it as a threat. No air-raid sirens were activated to warn civilians of the attack, despite Israel’s extensive aerial defense system.
“We are investigating why we did not identify it, attack it and intercept it,” Admiral Hagari said.
The Israeli military said the drone had likely flown from Yemen, where the Houthis are based, before approaching Tel Aviv from the coast. Video posted on X and verified by The New York Times shows what appears to be a unmanned aerial vehicle approaching west of Tel Aviv, followed by a blast at the location of the strike.
The two sides offered differing accounts of the type of drone used in the attack.
Nasruddin Amer, a Houthi spokesman, said in an interview that the drone, called Yaffa, had been fully manufactured in Yemen and that it had not previously been used for direct operational purposes. He said the drone bore technologies that made it difficult to detect.
But Admiral Hagari told reporters that the drone was a Samad-3, an Iranian model, that had been adapted for long-distance flight. He denied that it had stealth capabilities that enabled it to evade Israeli surveillance.
Mr. Amer said that the attack was a response to “an escalation in massacres against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” and that the Houthis would halt their assaults only when the war in Gaza ends and Israel’s blockade of the enclave is lifted. He added that Iran was not involved in the decision to carry out the attack on Tel Aviv, but he said the Houthis had updated the Iranians afterward.
Asked whether Israel would respond to Friday’s attack, Admiral Hagari said it would first work to fully assess the situation.
Iran-backed militants across the Middle East have fired masses of rockets and drones at Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack triggered Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza. Israel has intercepted most of them, leaving central Israel mostly unscathed in recent months — until Friday, when the explosive-laden drone struck the building just after 3 a.m.
Since November, the Houthis have also been attacking ships along a vital route in the Red Sea in what they have described as a campaign in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Admiral Hagari said that dozens of drones had been launched at Israel from Yemen since the war with Hamas began in October, most of which were intercepted by American or Israeli forces.
Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, has launched thousands of strikes on northern Israel since the start of the war, many of which Israel’s antimissile defenses have thwarted. Israel has also launched thousands of strikes on Lebanon in that period. Over 150,000 people have fled border towns in both countries, with little prospect of returning home.
Ron Huldai, the mayor of Tel Aviv, said the city was on heightened alert.
“The war is still here, and it is hard and painful,” he said on social media, referring to Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Credit: New York Times
