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Source; mehrnews
The Zionist newspaper Yedioth Aharonot revealed Friday that the Zionist regime’s army estimated Yemeni Armed Forces have fired around 200 drones and missiles towards the occupied territories since the onset of the war on Gaza.
The Zionist newspaper Yedioth Aharonot revealed Friday night that the Zionist regime’s army estimated Yemeni Armed Forces have fired around 200 drones and missiles towards the occupied territories since the onset of the war on the Gaza Strip.
Yedioth Aharonot reported that the Israeli regime’s estimate shows that the drone that targeted Tel Aviv traveled 2,000 kilometers in different directions in order to mislead the regime’s radars.
On Friday morning, the Yemeni Armed Forces attacked the occupied city of Tel Aviv with a new combat drone named “Jaffa”, killing one Zionist and injuring several others.
After penetrating Tel Aviv’s airspace, the stealth drone targeted a building near the US embassy in that area.
Several Israeli media outlets described the dimensions of this drone as large and announced that it approached Tel Aviv from the seaside at a low altitude and was able to pass through all defense systems and hit a building in Tel Aviv.
“Jaffa” is the original Arabic name for Tel Aviv before the Zionist occupation in 1948.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli regime’s army reported for the first time in March a cruise missile fired from Yemen entered Israeli airspace and exploded in an open area in northern Eilat port city in southern occupied territories.
The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which has been fighting Yemen’s internationally recognized government in a decade-long civil war, claimed responsibility for the explosion, saying in social media messages that it marked a “new phase” in its operations against Israel in response to the Israelis’ ongoing war against the Houthis’ ideological ally Hamas.
The Houthis said the strike used a “new drone called ‘Yafa’, which is capable of bypassing the enemy’s interception systems,” but a U.S. official told CBS News on Friday, echoing the Israeli military’s analysis, that it appeared to have been one of the group’s existing drones, with a modified fuel tank to extend its range.
The explosion caused by the drone was very near the U.S. consulate in Tel Aviv, but it remained unclear whether that was the target. There were no U.S. casualties reported.
Israeli authorities said the explosion hit an apartment building in Tel Aviv at 3:12 a.m. (7:12 p.m. Eastern on Thursday).
In a statement, Israel Defense Forces chief spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the drone “hit a building in central Tel Aviv where a civilian was killed and eight were slightly injured.” He confirmed that “no alert was triggered” and said the military was investigating how the weapon had slipped through Israel’s advanced air defenses.
Hagari said a preliminary investigation showed the drone “was fired from Yemen and it is an Iranian weapon that has been upgraded to extend the range.”
“Iran supports and arms its affiliates. So far, dozens of drones have been launched from Yemen, most of which were intercepted or shot down by CENTCOM [U.S. military] or Israel’s defense systems,” Hagari said, adding that another drone was shot down outside the Israel’s borders early Friday as it approached from the east, and that the military was “checking the connection between the two events.”
Three U.S. officials told CBS News there are currently no U.S. Navy ships deployed in the Red Sea, which could have helped to intercept the drone. The official said it was not part of a swarm attack, but a solitary drone launched at Israel.
Based on verified social media videos, CBS News confirmed the blast occurred a little more than 200 yards from the U.S. consulate in Tel Aviv. A U.S. official told CBS News that no American casualties had been reported.
The Houthis have launched drones and missiles at Israel and at commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea and surrounding waters throughout the nine-month war, in solidarity with Hamas. But until Friday, all the weapons fired at Israel had been intercepted by either Israel or its Western allies.
Israel has so far not carried out any attacks on the Houthis directly, allowing its allies the U.S. and Britain to take the lead instead as it focuses its efforts on the war in Gaza and ongoing fighting with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which is also backed by Iran.
In a statement issued later Friday, Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant vowed to “bring to justice anyone who harms the State of Israel,” and said he had held an assessment “to review the steps required to strengthen our defense arrays in light of events overnight, as well as the intelligence and operational activities required against those responsible for the attack.”