A drone claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels slipped through Israel’s vaunted air defence system on Friday to hit a Tel Aviv building near a US embassy annex, killing one person.
The Houthis fired at Tel Aviv a “new drone called ‘Yafa’, which is capable of bypassing the enemy’s interception systems,” the Iran-backed Yemeni movement’s spokesman, Yahya Saree, said on social media.
An Israeli military official said a “very big” drone was used in the attack on Israel’s commercial capital, explaining that “human error” led to the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) not being intercepted.
The Houthis have launched scores of drone and missile attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November in a campaign they say is an act of solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
They have also repeatedly claimed to have struck Israeli cities, including Eilat, Ashdod and Haifa, in the past, but Friday’s attack appears to be the first by the rebels to have breached Israel’s intricate air defences.
It came after they threatened an escalation.
The Israeli military official told reporters that a “very big drone that can travel long distances” was used in the attack which killed one person and occurred at 3:12 am (0012 GMT).
It was detected but the alarm was not immediately raised because of “human error” and it crashed into an apartment building, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Police said one man was found “dead in his apartment”, bearing shrapnel wounds. Emergency medical services said four people were taken to hospital with “relatively minor” injuries.
‘Everything blew out’
The explosion went off in a street about 100 metres (yards) from an annex of the US embassy in Israel, said an AFP journalist who saw broken windows all along the street lined with many apartment blocks.
“It woke me up because the vibration of the sound was like a 747 coming in,” said Kenneth Davis, an Israeli who was staying in a hotel opposite the struck building.
“And then the explosion… everything blew out in the room, the windows and things from the ceiling, and it was on me, nothing heavy, but lots of pieces of stuff,” he told AFPTV.
The Israeli military official said an attack by the Houthis was “one of the possibilities” being investigated.
He said another drone was detected on Israel’s eastern border and “thwarted” overnight, but he gave no details on where it came from.
With AFP
