A large explosion rumbled through the streets of central Tel Aviv early Friday morning after an apparent drone strike caused shards of shrapnel to rain down, injuring at least 10 people and leaving one dead, authorities said.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack. The Houthis have launched drones and missiles toward Israel throughout the Israel-Hamas war, in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against Israel. But until Friday, all were intercepted by either Israel or Western allies with forces stationed in the region.
Yahya Sare’e, the Houthis’ spokesperson, said in a statement published on the social media platform X that the strike was made in retaliation for the war and had hit one of many of the group’s targets.
The Houthis claimed their newest drones can bypass Israel’s aerial defense systems. However, an Israeli military official on Friday that the explosive-laden drone had been identified on Thursday and attributed the hit to “human error.”
The strike hit hours after Israel’s military confirmed one of its airstrikes had killed a Hezbollah commander and other militants in southern Lebanon. Israel has so far not made attacks on the Houthis, allowing its allies instead to take the lead as it focuses its efforts on the war in Gaza and ongoing fighting with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.
It also came a day after Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Thursday, a move that threatened negotiations to end the 9-month-old war in Gaza.
Israeli negotiators were in Cairo on Wednesday to press ahead with talks on a cease-fire and hostage release deal, as Israel and Hamas consider the latest proposal. In recent weeks, Israel has stepped up strikes in central Gaza, where many Palestinians have fled to escape fighting in other parts of the beleaguered territory.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sparked the war when militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,600 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Two international courts have accused Israel of war crimes and genocide — charges Israel denies. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are crammed into squalid tent camps in central and southern Gaza. Israeli restrictions, fighting and the breakdown of law and order have limited humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine.
Here’s the latest:
BEIRUT — The militant Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have called on the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization to withdraw its recognition of Israel in retaliation for a resolution approved by Israel’s parliament rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The two groups made the announcement late Thursday following a meeting in the Gulf nation of Qatar between Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Islamic Jihad chief Ziad Nakhaleh and his deputy Mohammed al-Hindi, according to a Hamas statement.
The two groups said the Palestinian people have the right to set up their own independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Beirut — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said it fired a volley of rockets on a northern Israeli village Friday morning in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes the night before on south Lebanon that killed several Hezbollah members and wounded civilians.
In another attack, the group also said that it used for the first time a new rocket with heavy warhead to strike an Israeli army post in the disputed Kfar Chouba hills. Hezbollah said in a statement that the Wabel rocket, produced by the group in Lebanon, destroyed parts of the Rweisat al-Alam post and caused a fire inside it.
Hezbollah said its fighters fired a salvo of rockets on the northern Israeli village of Abirim for the first time since fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border began in early October.
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