A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
In Israel, a drone exploding near the U.S. Embassy branch office in Tel Aviv has killed one person. The Houthis in Yemen claim responsibility. They've been firing at Israel throughout the Gaza War, but this is the first Houthi attack to penetrate the heart of Israel. NPR's Daniel Estrin reports from Tel Aviv.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: I am a block away from the American Embassy. You can see the American flag flying, and right here is where the explosion took place, just after 3:00 a.m. local time. There are police teams picking up bits of shrapnel on the ground. Teams are clearing broken windows from apartments.
DEAN ELSDUNNE: We're talking about an explosive device that had a large blast radius.
ESTRIN: Police spokesman Dean Elsdunne.
ELSDUNNE: And you're talking about a small street where both sides, left and right, which are tall apartment buildings, were affected, all the way from the bottom to the top.
ESTRIN: Israel's military says the drone slammed into one of the apartment buildings, a block away from the Mediterranean Sea. 27-year-old Jonathan Karten tells NPR he was on a balcony with friends.
JONATHAN KARTEN: And a friend of mine said, oh, cool, what's that? What's that over there? I turned my head to see, and then I heard a buzzing, like an F-35, but it was only maybe 30 meters above sea level, so it was strange, and then I saw a red and orange blast. I felt this heat, a blowback.
ESTRIN: The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen said it carried out the attack as part of its support for Palestinians in Gaza. Throughout the Israel-Hamas War, the Houthis have fired dozens of rockets and drones toward Israel and at commercial ships in the Red Sea. Israel, the U.S. and Western allies had intercepted projectiles launched toward Israel - until now. Israel's chief military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, spoke to reporters.
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DANIEL HAGARI: (Speaking Hebrew).
ESTRIN: He said the unmanned drone was fired, apparently, from Yemen, and entered Israel from the sea from the west. He identified it as an Iranian-made drone retrofitted for long-distance flight. Israel's Iron Dome air defense system has largely protected Tel Aviv and other population centers from the thousands of rockets fired by Hamas out of Gaza and by Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Sirens typically provide a warning when Tel Aviv or other cities come under aerial attack, but the military says no alert was sounded because the detection system had not been activated, due to human error. One resident who lives just a couple blocks away, Elior Cohen, says his dog woke up, startled, from this large blast.
ELIOR COHEN: A drone from Yemen - it's like, yeah, this is unusual. I think Tel Aviv is the Holy Grail for attacks. In that sense, unfortunately, it's a success for those terrorists who want to kill innocent people.
ESTRIN: Israel has been fighting on multiple fronts during more than nine months of war with Hamas in Gaza. Israel is not known to have retaliated in Yemen so far, but the regional fighting has now reached a new milestone with the explosive drone in Tel Aviv.
Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Tel Aviv. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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