Israel threatens retaliation for Yemeni drone attack on Tel Aviv – Naharnet

Israel threatened retaliation after a drone claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels penetrated the country’s much-vaunted air defenses and killed a civilian in a Tel Aviv apartment building near an annex to the US embassy.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack and called for “maximum restraint” to prevent “further escalation in the region.”

The dawn attack came just hours before Israel suffered another blow: the United Nations’ highest court ruled that the occupation of Palestinian territories was “illegal” and must end as soon as possible.

The opinion of the International Court of Justice in The Hague is not binding, but it comes against the backdrop of growing international criticism of Israel’s handling of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the court’s decision as “a victory for justice.” Hamas said it “presents the international system with the need to act immediately to end the occupation.”

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was responsible for the massive expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, insisted: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land.”

The Houthis are one of numerous Iran-backed armed groups in the Middle East that have claimed responsibility for drone and missile attacks on Israel in retaliation for the Gaza war.

The group, which controls large parts of Yemen, including much of the Red Sea coast, has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on Israeli cities such as Ashdod, Haifa and Eilat, but Friday’s attack appears to be the first to penetrate Israel’s sophisticated air defenses.

The Houthis fired a “new drone called ‘Yafa’ at Tel Aviv, which is capable of evading the enemy’s interception systems,” said their spokesman Yahya Saree.

An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 3:12 a.m. (0012 GMT) attack used a “very large drone that can travel long distances.”

He said the drone was detected, but due to a “human error” the alarm was not raised in time and the drone crashed into a residential building.

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel believes the drone used was of Iranian production and had been modernized to be able to reach Tel Aviv, at least 1,800 kilometers away, from Yemen.

According to medical officials, one civilian was killed and four people suffered “relatively minor” injuries.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed revenge.

“The security system will deal decisively and unexpectedly with anyone who seeks to harm the State of Israel or to carry out terrorist attacks against it,” he said in comments posted on the social media platform X.

– “Everything flew away” –

Grainy surveillance camera footage shows the buzzing of a drone followed by an explosion that shook the building and set off car alarms.

The explosion occurred about 100 meters from an annex to the US embassy, ​​said an AFP journalist who saw broken windows along the street lined with apartment blocks.

“I woke up because the vibration of the noise sounded like a 747 jet landing,” said Kenneth Davis, an Israeli who was staying in a hotel across the street from the hit building.

“And then the explosion… everything in the room was blown away,” he told AFPTV.

Since November, the Houthis have also carried out dozens of drone and missile attacks on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that they claim are linked to Israel.

To prevent attacks on shipping, the US and Britain launched a campaign of air strikes in January.

The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, in which 1,195 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to a count by the AFP news agency based on Israeli figures.

The Palestinian militants also took 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli military, 42 of them are dead.

At least 38,848 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-ruled territory where fighting raged on Friday.

– WHO reports no cases of polio –

Residents reported hearing clashes between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli army in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, as well as explosions and artillery fire.

The war has destroyed large parts of the Gaza Strip’s housing and other infrastructure, leaving virtually the entire population homeless and suffering from a lack of food and drinking water.

Many live in unsanitary conditions. Health authorities in Gaza and Israel announced on Thursday that polio viruses had been detected in wastewater samples from Gaza.

The World Health Organization said on Friday that no cases of the highly contagious disease had been detected in Gaza so far.