An Iranian-made drone sent by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck Israel on Friday, leaving one person dead and at least 10 wounded in a neighbourhood near the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
The aerial strike — the first lethal Houthi attack in Israel — rumbled through the centre of the city, causing shrapnel to rain down and spreading shards of glass over a large radius.
“We are holding an investigation today and in the coming days to understand exactly from where the threat was fired and what are the needed responses to defend the country and what are the attacking responses against who is threatening the state of Israel,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for Israel’s military.
The Houthis have disrupted commercial shipping and launched drones and missiles toward Israel throughout the country’s war with Hamas. But until Friday, all were intercepted by either Israel or Western allies with forces stationed in the region.
Yahya Sare’e, the Houthis’ spokesperson, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement published on the social media platform X. He said it was in retaliation for the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and had hit one of many of the group’s targets.
‘Human error’ may have prevented intercept
Israel’s military said it believed the drone — an Iranian Samad-3 upgraded to travel long distances — had travelled from Yemen, but rebuffed the Houthis′ claim that their arsenal was capable of bypassing Israel’s aerial defences.
An Israeli military official said the explosive-laden drone was identified on Thursday, but penetrated Israel because of “human error” in operating the system. The assessment of aerial threats has not changed because, the military said, Israel’s adversaries have attempted such attacks for months.
The Houthi strike, the first to threaten Tel Aviv, hit at around 3:10 a.m. local time. Local police said it reverberated to nearby cities and physically injured at least 10 people.
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Israel’s military said they had not determined whether the drone exploded in the air or directly struck buildings, but it blew out windows and damaged cars throughout the coastal neighborhood.
For many, it reaffirmed feelings of disillusionment with how the military has handled the war over the past nine months. Yossi Nevi, a retired evacuee from Kiryat Shmona living in a nearby hotel, said the blast shook him awake to watch the aftermath from his balcony and decreased his faith in the army’s management of the war.
Hearing it was human error, Nevi said, made him lose “all trust in the army, not that I had much after the past nine months.”
The Houthi strike hit hours after Israel’s military confirmed one of its airstrikes had killed a Hezbollah commander and other militants in southern Lebanon. Israel has so far not made attacks on the Houthis, allowing its allies instead to take the lead as it focuses its efforts on the war in Gaza with Hamas and ongoing fighting with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.
Like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are backed by Israel’s archenemy, Iran.
The Houthis have routinely claimed responsibility for hitting targets in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Analysts and Western intelligence services have long accused Iran of arming the group, a claim that Tehran denies.
Friday’s drone strike on Tel Aviv could resurface fears about the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas expanding into a region-wide conflagration as international mediators continue to push for a ceasefire.
Muhammad Hamdan, who lives in Khan Younis, is the sole survivor of his family after losing 18 family members. They were civilians with no affiliation with Hamas, he says.
The war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, has killed more than 38,600 people, according to the Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal Palestinian territory, displaced most of its 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger.
The October attack in Israel killed 1,200 people, including several Canadian citizens. Militants took about 250 people hostage then, with about 120 remaining in captivity, with about a third of those believed to be dead. Dozens of have been freed and repatriated since Oct. 7.
