One man has been killed and several people wounded after a “human error” led to Israel’s Iron Dome failing to intercept an overnight drone attack on Tel Aviv.
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen took responsibility, claiming the strike – which local media said hit an apartment in the city centre near the US embassy – was “in retaliation” for the war in Gaza, and that its “new drone… is capable of bypassing the enemy’s interception systems and undetectable by radars”.
But an initial investigation by the Israeli air force (IAF) found that the large, long-range attack drone had been picked up on radars, and only was not engaged by air defences due to a “human error”.
It added that the deadly attack, which occurred at around 3.12am local time on Friday, “shouldn’t have happened” and it takes full responsibility for the failure that led to the attack, which experts told i was “an outlier” in its breaching of Israel‘s defences.
Experts also criticised the failure of the US and UK to thwart Houthi capabilities despite months of military strikes on rebel targets in Yemen.
The victim, reportedly a man in his fifties, is understood to have been killed by shrapnel from the explosion while some of the injured were taken to hospitals to be treated for shrapnel and shockwave-related wounds or acute anxiety.
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a press conference on Friday morning that after flying at low altitude for several hours to reach Israel from Yemen, the drone – which the IDF said was likely an Iranian-made Samad-3 UAV, modified to have an extended range – made its way to Tel Aviv from the direction of the sea.
An IDF spokesperson told i the incident was under “thorough review”, with Israeli security forces currently operating at the scene while the IAF has “increased its air patrols in order to protect Israeli airspace”, but declined to comment further on the reported error that meant the drone was not identified as a hostile target.
Meanwhile, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant appeared to indicate that Israel would respond to the strike – something it has not done directly to previous attacks from Yemen, instead leaving military action there to the US and UK.
“The defence establishment is working to immediately strengthen all defence systems, and will settle the score with anyone who harms the state of Israel or directs terror against it,” Mr Gallant said in a statement shared to X, formerly Twitter.
Emanuel Fabian, military correspondent for the Times of Israel, said that it’s “entirely possible that Israel won’t respond directly again and may leave it up to the Americans to respond, or there may be a change and Israel will carry out a direct response”.
“It does have the capability to reach that sort of distance,” he added.
Mr Fabian also told i that a “human decision not to mark [the drone] as a hostile target” made the deadly incident “an outlier”.
“I don’t remember there being a case, at least recently, where they were able to detect but wrongly did not list it as a hostile target. Usually the Israeli air force’s aerial defence array is pretty quick with figuring out what’s a hostile target and what isn’t,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s something we’ve seen, not in these circumstances, before. There’ve been dozens of these attacks from Yemen, from Iraq and Syria as well, where the army is able to identify them and engage them at an earlier stage before they even reach Israel – so this is an outlier.”
Mr Fabian explained that everything from friendly and civilian aircraft to large birds is picked up on the radar – which only shows a possible target’s altitude and speed – and that optical sensors like cameras must then be used, by human analysts, to determine whether something is hostile.
“In this case, [the drone] showed up on the radar and was just ignored due to some human decision and wasn’t suspected of being a hostile target,” he added. “It’s a very complicated and sensitive system that’s not automatic – there are people that have to try and work out what the target is”.
It comes as the impact of the Houthi campaign is increasingly felt in Israel, with the Israeli port of Eilat declaring bankruptcy due to a sharp decline in commercial activities and revenues resulting from the naval blockade imposed by the Yemen-based militants on Israeli-linked cargo ships since last November.
But Michael Knights, a Middle East military and security affairs expert and researcher of Iran’s militia network at The Washington Institute, told i the attack “looks like a fluke”.
“Eventually something gets through – there may have been a unique routing factor here and made this look like a helicopter or Israel drone,” he said.
When asked whether it could be a sign of Israel’s defences being worn down amid constant attacks from several directions, he added: “Let’s see them repeat it.
“Presume for a second they used a new tactic or technology: The problem with stunt shots is that you blow the technique and next time they don’t work. That’s why major powers reserve their best kinetic and cyber capabilities for the big wars and don’t use them in the meantime”.
Michael Burleigh, a senior fellow at the foreign policy think-tank LSE Ideas, said he was surprised the defence and siren activation systems within the Iron Dome – the smallest of three systems in Israel’s Aerial Defense Array, which has been effective at stopping short-range rockets fired by the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah – weren’t “computerised” or operated by AI, adding that he did not expect that human error could come into play.
“Israel prides itself on its defensive shield,” he told i. “Perhaps they’re so focused on Lebanon that they’re not really looking [in the direction of Yemen] at 3 o’clock in the morning”.
On the significance of a sole drone evading Israel’s defences, Mr Burleigh said that usually “it would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of missiles – that’s what Hezbollah’s strategy would be, to hit it with so many missiles you couldn’t intercept them all at once because they’d run out of the rockets needed to neutralise them”.
He added that the incident also highlights the “complete failure of the British and American military campaign to suppress the Houthis; they’ve been doing it for months at vast cost and yet they haven’t stopped their capacity to fire missiles and launch drones”.