Houthis Launch Deadly Drone Strike on Tel Aviv, Evading Israel’s...

Houthis Launch Deadly Drone Strike on Tel Aviv, Evading Israel’s Defenses At least one person was killed and eight others injured in a predawn attack on Friday. The Israeli military said it was investigating why it “did not identify it, attack it and intercept it.”

Source: Houthis Launch Deadly Drone Strike on Tel Aviv, Evading Israel’s Defenses - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Drone Attack Hits Tel Aviv

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Surveillance footage shows the moment a deadly drone strike rocked Tel Aviv early Friday, killing at least one person and injuring several others.CreditCredit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

By**by SobelmanAaron BoxermanRonen BergmanLara JakesandErin Mendell

**by Sobelman reported from Rehovot, Israel; Aaron Boxerman from Jerusalem; and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv.

July 19, 2024

In a rare breach of Israel’s multilayered air-defense system, a drone fired by the Houthi militia in Yemen slammed into an apartment building near the United States Embassy branch office in Tel Aviv early Friday, killing at least one person and wounding eight others.

Pentagon officials expressed doubt that the drone had specifically targeted the U.S. building, an attack that analysts assessed had possibly been an attempt by the Houthis to strike anywhere they could in Tel Aviv. The Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia that has been attacking ships in the Red Sea, claimed responsibility for the strike on the city of 450,000 people.

The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the country’s defense systems had apparently picked up the presence of the drone but had failed to register it as a threat. No air-raid sirens warned residents before the drone crashed into the building, causing an explosion that jolted people from their sleep, shattered windows and left shrapnel scattered on the streets.

“We are investigating why we did not identify it, attack it and intercept it,” Admiral Hagari said on Friday.