An Iranian-made drone sent by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck Tel Aviv in the early hours of Friday, killing one person and wounding at least 10.
The hit in Israel’s biggest city was startling, because the drone appeared to have crossed much of the country through the multilayered air defences that have intercepted almost all Houthi drones and rockets since the Gaza war began.
The Israeli military said it was investigating what went wrong. Its chief spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said the drone was detected by air defences, but an “error” occurred and “there was no interception”.
“We are investigating the entire chain,” he said. Another military official told the Associated Press news agency that “human error” was to blame.
The military said air patrols had been increased to protect Israeli airspace but it had not ordered new civil defence measures.
The defence minister, Yoav Gallant, vowed to “settle the score”, Israeli army radio reported. His remarks followed a meeting with top military and intelligence officials to assess the strike.
The 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 Houthis claimed responsibility, saying their “UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] force” attacked “one of the important targets in the occupied Jaffa region, what is now called Israeli Tel Aviv”.
Earlier this month, Israeli forces said they had detected a suspected Houthi drone headed for the Red Sea port of Eilat, which they shot down with a fighter jet.
The Iran-backed group has launched waves of attacks targeting shipping through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, causing significant disruption and a sharp drop in business at the port of Eilat.
The Houthis have said they launched the attacks in response to Israeli attacks on Gaza, which have so far killed more than 38,000 people since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
The drone attack shook residents of Tel Aviv, undermining a fragile sense of security as Israelis living close to the border with Lebanon increasingly fear incursions by drones or rockets sent by Hezbollah, while communities close to the border with Gaza remain on high alert for sporadic rocket fire.
Footage from the site in Tel Aviv showed broken glass strewn across the pavements as crowds of onlookers gathered near a building bearing blast marks. The area, close to a US embassy annexe, was sealed off by police tape.
Emergency services said the explosion took place at about 3.15am, striking a building in the centre of the city.
Police found a body with injuries caused by shrapnel in the building, located on the corner of Ben-Yehuda Avenue and Shalom-Aleichem Street, a spokesperson said.
“The police, along with emergency and rescue forces, discovered a man in his 50s in a nearby building who was found dead in his apartment with shrapnel wounds on his body,” police said.
Residents of central Tel Aviv said they were woken by a loud explosion, while others described feeling their buildings shake.
“The whole building shook,” a resident named Alon told Haaretz. “My neighbours’ windows shattered so I was sure something had hit the building. It was only when I went outside that I realised that several buildings had been damaged.”
Yossi Nevi, a retired evacuee from Kiryat Shmona, said he was shaken awake in the hotel where he was living. He told the Associated Press that the news it was human error made him lose “all trust in the army, not that I had much after the past nine months”.
A paramedic with the Magen David Adom emergency services described treating injured people in the street and two in their home. “Shortly afterwards we found the fatality on one of the top floors of an adjacent building. He was in bed and there was shrapnel damage everywhere in his apartment. We had no choice but to pronounce him dead,” he said.
Police and bomb disposal units at the scene conducted searches for suspicious objects and additional threats. Police urged residents to “respect safety instructions and not to approach or touch debris or shrapnel that may contain explosives”.
Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report