TEL AVIV: Israel threatened retaliation on Friday after a drone claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels penetrated its vaunted air defenses and killed a civilian in a Tel Aviv apartment building near the US embassy compound.
The attack prompted condemnation from UN chief Antonio Guterres and a call for “maximum restraint” to prevent “further escalation in the region”.
The pre-dawn strike came hours before Israel was dealt another blow, a ruling by the UN's top court that its occupation of the Palestinian territories was “illegal” and must be ended as soon as possible.
The Hague-based International Court of Justice's advisory opinion is not binding, but it comes at a time of escalating international condemnation of Israel's conduct of the war with Hamas in Gaza.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hailed the court's decision as a “victory for justice.” Hamas said it was placing “the international system before the imperative of immediate action to end the occupation”.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overseen a major 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 a number of Iranian-backed armed groups in the Middle East that have claimed drone and missile attacks on Israel in retaliation for the Gaza war.
The group, which controls territory in Yemen, including much of its Red Sea coast, has previously claimed attacks on Israeli cities including Ashdod, Haifa and Eilat, but Friday's attack appears to be the first to breach Israel's sophisticated air defenses.
The Houthis fired at Tel Aviv “a new drone called 'Yafa' that is capable of bypassing enemy interception systems,” said their spokesman Yahya Saree.
An Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the attack at 3:12 a.m. (0012 GMT) used “a very large drone that can travel long distances.”
He said the drone was detected but due to “human error” the alarm was not raised in time and crashed into an apartment building.
Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel believed the drone used was Iranian-made and had been upgraded to reach Tel Aviv from Yemen – at least 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) away.
Medical services said one civilian was killed and four people suffered “relatively minor” injuries.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed revenge.
“The security system will decisively and surprisingly settle the score with anyone who tries to harm the State of Israel or broadcast terrorism against it,” he said in comments posted on the X social media platform.
In grainy security camera footage, the buzz of what appeared to be a drone was followed by an explosion that shook the building and set off car alarms.
The explosion occurred about 100 meters from the US embassy annex, said an AFP journalist who saw broken windows along a street lined with apartment blocks.
“It woke me up because the vibration of the sound was like a 747 coming in,” said Kenneth Davis, an Israeli who lived in a hotel across the street from the hit building.
“And then the explosion… everything in the room exploded,” he told AFPTV.
Since November, the Houthis have also carried out dozens of drone and missile attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which they say is linked to Israel.
The United States and Britain launched a campaign of airstrikes in January to deter attacks on shipping.
The war in Gaza was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that left 1,195 people dead, mostly civilians, according to AFP statistics based on Israeli figures.
The militants also took 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 42, the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 38,848 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures in the Hamas-controlled territory, where fighting raged on Friday.
Residents said clashes between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli army could be heard, with explosions and shelling in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.
The war has destroyed much of Gaza's housing and other infrastructure, leaving virtually the entire population displaced and lacking food and drinking water.
Many live in unsanitary conditions. Health authorities in Gaza and Israel said Thursday that poliovirus had been detected in sewage samples from Gaza.
The World Health Organization said on Friday that no cases of the highly contagious disease have yet been discovered in Gaza.
