A 50-year-old man was killed and 10 people were injured when a drone exploded in the center of Tel Aviv on Friday, 3:00 a.m., local time, in an attack claimed by the Houthi militia in Yemen.
Police, firefighters, and military forces arrived at the scene of the explosion, not far from the US Consulate, after hundreds of people reported a loud explosion. No warning siren was heard.
Shortly after the incident, the Israeli military issued a statement saying that a preliminary inquiry revealed that the explosion had been caused by “the fall of an aerial target, which did not trigger a warning. The incident is now thoroughly investigated. Many [security] forces are now operating at the scene. The air force has multiplied its airplane patrols, to protect the country’s skies. There are no changes in the instructions of the Homeland Command.”
According to Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV, the US military intercepted a ballistic missile and three drones launched overnight by the Houthis toward Israel, but a fourth drone managed to hit Tel Aviv.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack through a spokesperson. In a message posted to X, the spokesperson referred to the drone attack as a “military operation on the occupied Jaffa area known as ‘Tel Aviv.’” The Houthi representative further claimed that the group has a new drone dubbed Jaffa, which is “capable of bypassing interception systems and radars cannot detect it.”
The Israeli military said Friday morning that the long-range drone had apparently been launched from the south, but stressed that all possibilities are being verified, Haaretz reported. The drone was identified by the Israeli Air Force but not intercepted due to human error. The matter is under investigation. The air force said that during the night, another drone launched from the east had exploded, possibly launched to interfere with detecting the one that exploded in Tel Aviv.
Israeli military radio reported three drone explosions overnight — the one in Tel Aviv, apparently fired from Yemen; one drone that exploded outside Israeli airspace, apparently launched from Iraq; and a drone fired from Lebanon, which was intercepted in the over the Upper Galilee.
