TEL AVIV: A drone claimed by Yemen’s Huthi rebels slipped through Israel’s vaunted air defence system on Friday to hit a Tel Aviv building near a US embassy annex, killing a civilian.
The Huthis fired at Tel Aviv a “new drone called ‘Yafa’, which is capable of bypassing theenemy’s interception systems,” said Yahya Saree, the Iran-backed Yemeni movement’s spokesman.
The Huthis have targeted shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with numerous drone and missile attacks since November, citing solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
They have previously claimed attacks on Israeli cities including Ashdod, Haifa and Eilat, but Friday’s strike appears to be the first to breach Israel’s intricate air defences.It comes after they threatened an escalation.
An Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 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).
The drone was detected, the official said, but due to “human error” the alarm wasnot raised in time, and it slammed into an apartment building. Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel believed the drone used was Iranian-made and upgraded so that it could reach Tel Aviv from Yemen—at least 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) away. It was “likely a Samad-3 model, which we estimate was launched from Yemen and reached Tel Aviv,” he said, adding the impact killed one civilian and lightly injured others.
Emergency medical services said four people were taken to hospital with “relatively minor” injuries. In grainy security camera footage, the buzz of what appeared to be the drone was followed by an explosion that shook the building and set off car alarms.
The blast occurred about 100 metres (yards) from a US embassy annex, said an AFP journalist who saw broken windows along the street lined with apartment blocks. Hagari said Israel “intercepted another UAV trying to infiltrate from the east” at around the same time as the Tel Aviv attack.“We are investigating why the UAV was not identified as a threat and intercepted before it struck,” he said.