Explosion near U.S. Embassy office in Tel Aviv kills 1, injures 7

The Houthis, a Yemen-based group that has been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea since last year, said Friday in a statement that it had carried out a “qualitative military operation” targeting Tel Aviv, using what it said was a new drone capable of evading countermeasures. The attack, the statement said, was in response to Israeli “massacres” in Gaza.

During the war in Gaza, the Houthis and other Iran-backed groups in the region have carried out near-constant attacks they say are aimed at supporting Palestinian militant groups and ending Israel’s military offensive. The Yemeni group has previously claimed drone attacks on the southern Israeli city of Eilat — roughly 1,000 miles from northern Yemen — but the strike on Tel Aviv, if confirmed, appears to represent an increase in the Houthis’ capabilities and reach.

The fatality was a 50-year-old man who was found with severe shrapnel injuries in an apartment adjacent to the blast, said Roee Klein, a paramedic with Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency service.

Friday’s rare attack on Tel Aviv took place hours after the Israeli air force said it killed two commanders of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group in Lebanon with which Israel has been exchanging fire. Hezbollah acknowledged the deaths of two of its members but did not identify them as senior operatives.

Israel’s aerial defense system, outfitted primarily for rockets, has for months struggled to identify and eliminate Hezbollah drones — which fly faster, lower and often in nonlinear paths — in attacks on Israel’s north.

In the hours after the explosion, Israeli bomb disposal experts and rescue teams were operating at the site. Police urged residents to avoid approaching the scene and touching “rocket remnants that may contain explosives.”

Tel Aviv’s mayor, Ron Huldai, posted on X that the city was on “high alert” after the drone attack and that residents were required to follow emergency instructions. “The war is still here, and it is hard and painful,” he said.

It was not immediately clear whether the drone was targeting the U.S. Embassy branch office. U.S. Embassy officials in Israel did not respond to request for comment early Friday.

An Israeli military official who briefed the news media on Friday, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military protocol, confirmed that no alert sounded as the drone approached and said an initial inquiry pointed to “human error that caused the interception and defense systems not to be operated.” The error may have been related to “identification,” the official added, saying that the matter was still being investigated.

The drone was a “large UAV that can fly large distances,” the official said, referring to an unmanned aerial vehicle. The military was considering the possibility it had come from Yemen, based on the Houthi announcements, while also examining the flight path, the official said.

“Our understanding is that it’s probably not from the north,” the official said, downplaying the possibility of an attack from Lebanon, while adding “we are not ruling out any possibility.”

Fahim reported from Istanbul and Ables from Seoul. Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv and Suzan Haidamous in Beirut contributed to this report.