Drone strike by Houthi terrorists kills 1, wounds at least 10 in Tel Aviv

The aerial strike rumbled through the center of the city near the U.S. Embassy, causing shrapnel to rain down and spreading shards of glass over a large radius.

The hit in Israel’s biggest city was startling because the drone appeared to have crossed much of the country through the multilayered air defenses that have intercepted almost all of the drones and rockets that Yemen’s Houthis have been launching toward Israel since the Gaza war began.

Most have failed even to reach Israel’s southernmost city, Eilat, on the Red Sea some 160 miles south of Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military said it was investigating what went wrong. Chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the drone was detected by air defenses, but an “error” occurred and “there was no interception.”

“We are investigating the entire chain,” he said. Another military official blamed “human error.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

The spokesman for the Houthis, Yahya Sare’e, 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 and had hit one of the group’s many targets.

Israel’s military identified the drone as an Iranian Samad-3 upgraded to travel long distances and said it was believed to have come from Yemen.

The drone hit at around 3:10 a.m., blowing out windows and damaging cars throughout a coastal neighborhood of Tel Aviv and reverberating as far as nearby cities. The military said it had not determined if it exploded in the air or directly struck buildings.

Footage verified by the AP shows the low-flying drone arriving at Tel Aviv’s shoreline and then heading into the city, moments before an explosion lights up the night sky.

The U.S. State Department said there was no damage to the U.S. Embassy or any of its staff members.

The Houthi strike hit hours after Israel’s military confirmed one of its airstrikes had killed a Hezbollah commander and other terrorists 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 and ongoing fighting with Hezbollah.

The attack also comes days before Netanyahu is to travel to Washington and address Congress.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the deadly drone attack in Tel Aviv and expressed concern at “the risk such dangerous acts pose for further escalation in the region,” his spokesman said.

In other developments:

— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the West Bank and east Jerusalem were part of the Jewish people’s historical “homeland,” and harshly criticized a Friday decision by the International Court of Justice.

The top U.N. court said Friday that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is “unlawful” and called on it to end and for settlement construction to stop immediately.

“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria,” he said in a post on the social media platform X.

— U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel that will release Israeli hostages in Gaza are “inside the 10-yard line,” as talks between warring sides in Cairo appear to make progress.

“But we know that anything in the last 10 yards are the hardest,” said Blinken, speaking from the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Friday.

— The new British government has overturned its predecessor’s suspension of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Palestinians.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy told lawmakers that humanitarian aid in Gaza is “a moral necessity” and that UNRWA is “absolutely central” to U.K. efforts to support civilians on the ground.