Explainer: How Yemeni drone ‘Yafa’ struck Tel Aviv, adding to woes of Netanyahu

By Ivan Kesic

Yemeni military’s drone strike in the heart of Tel Aviv on Friday has grabbed headlines worldwide, yet again laying bare the inefficacy of much-hyped Israeli defense systems.

The unprecedented drone strike came in response to the Israeli regime’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has now surpassed 29,000, most of them children.

Yemeni military has carried out a string of military operations in support of Gaza over the past several months, vowing to continue such operations until the genocidal war crimes in Gaza are put to an end.

Rattled by the drone strike, the Israeli regime carried out airstrikes on civilian targets in the western Yemeni province of al-Hudaydah on Saturday, which resulted in many casualties.

However, the Yemeni government officials said the Arab country would continue its pro-Gaza operations and certainly make the Israeli regime repent its aggression against the people of Yemen.

Leader of the Yemeni Ansarullah resistance movement Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in a speech on Sunday warned Israel that Yemen is more capable than ever of dealing blows to the occupying regime.

“Yemeni people are pleased to be in direct confrontation with the Israeli enemy, and they are steadfast and brave people,” he said, stressing that Israel cannot stop Yemen’s support for Gaza.

Yemeni people are also backing their government and military in their pro-Gaza operations.

Ahmed Hassan, a social media influencer from Yemen, in a series of tweets after the Yemeni military operation against Tel Aviv, said he thanked God for Yemeni solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians.

“Thank God we have become partners with Gaza in their pain. A great blessing from God to Yemen to be a human shield for Gaza,” he wrote on X, expressing solidarity with people in the besieged territory.

In another tweet, after Israel targeted the province of al-Hudaydah, he said Yemenis were waiting for it.

“The issue with Israel has now become personal. The war will not stop now unless we expel Israel from the region or 34 million Yemenis die. There is no third solution,” Hassan wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Pertinently, on Saturday morning, the Yemeni military announced its latest operation, targeting southern occupied Palestinian territories as well as an American vessel in the Red Sea.

How were Israelis taken by surprise?

On Friday, in a rare military operation, Yemen's armed forces surprised the Israeli regime with a successful drone strike that hit downtown Tel Aviv without being detected and without activating sirens.

It came a day after Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said the Arab country intends to expand the scope of its military operations in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

According to Yemeni military sources, the operation was carried out by a "Yafa" drone, named after the original pre-Zionist Palestinian city, developed and manufactured inside Yemen.

The motivation for the development of this hard-to-detect unnamed model was the downing of Yemeni drones targeting Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat) by certain Arab countries.

They pointed out that it is not the latest weapon and that they have a "very large" stock of drones of this type, which cover a range of 2,000 km and are equipped with modern jamming and infiltration systems.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces, emphasized that this type of advanced and radar-evading drone was used for the first operational time and that its use will continue.

In a spectacular military parade last year, Yemen displayed the Waeed-2 long-range loitering munition with the aforementioned range and high-explosive fragmented warhead, however, footage of the operation showed that it was not the delta-winged drone.

It is therefore more likely that it is an improved version of some existing models with a classic pusher-drive configuration, such as the Sammad series or Shehab.

How did the drone travel to Tel Aviv?

The distance from Yemen to Tel Aviv, not counting the flight over third countries and the verified strike from the direction of the open sea, is almost exactly 2,000 km and matches the Yemeni data.

According to the videos posted on social networks, the drone took an unusual route, avoiding the mainland south of the Israeli-occupied territories and the Negev desert, traversing Egypt and approaching Tel Aviv from the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

Approaching the city at an altitude of 20-30 meters, it flew dozens of meters south of the US diplomatic facilities and the Sea Tower, hitting the building with a powerful explosion.

The drone was not detected by radar and no sirens were heard, and after it struck the center of Tel Aviv, the surrounding streets were blocked by security forces and general panic reigned.

Israeli regime sources reported that at least ten people were injured in the surprise strike and one Israeli military reservist, a Zionist settler from Belarus, was killed.

How did the world react to it?

In a televised speech, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said the occupied city of Yafa, renamed Tel Aviv after the Zionist occupation and the largest city of that entity is “no longer a safe place."

He warned that the city, whose metropolitan area is home to over four million inhabitants and is full of sensitive military and security buildings, will continue to be a primary target within the range of Yemeni weapons until the aggression against Gaza is stopped.

Saree described the operation as successful, noting that Yemeni forces will continue their retaliatory operations in support of oppressed Palestinians in Gaza and their valiant resistance fighters who are defending their Arab and Muslim lands.

"Our operations will not cease until the ongoing aggression against Gaza stops and the tight blockade on Palestinians is lifted," he stressed.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the political bureau of the Ansarullah resistance movement, reiterated that Yemen will continue operations until the atrocities against Gaza end, adding that they are ready for "any scenario" in terms of a possible Israeli response.

Palestinian resistance movements, including Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, praised the drone operation conducted by Yemen's armed forces.

"We highly appreciate and commend the qualitative military operation carried out by the Yemeni Armed Forces and the brothers of Ansarullah, targeting the heart of the city of 'Tel Aviv,' the center of the entity and the symbol of its pride," says the Hamas statement.

The Islamic Jihad hailed the Yemeni forces as "heroic" for conducting the bold operation against Tel Aviv, adding that the operation was "a natural response" to the ongoing war crimes committed against Palestinians in Gaza.

"Our brothers in Yemen have proven that the cause of Palestine and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque is the central cause of the Arab and Islamic nations and that resistance is the only way to confront Zionist and Western arrogance against our nation," they said.

The Popular Front also praised the Yemeni strike, saying the operation "sent clear messages to the cowardly leaders of the occupation that the entire Zionist entity is within the reach of resistance and that there is no safe place for Zionists anywhere."

Following the operation, Israeli regime media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postponed his trip to the United States, where he was scheduled to address Congress.

What is the significance of the operation?

Yemen's drone operation against Tel Aviv may be small in scope of damage, but it represents a new phase in retaliatory warfare against the Israeli regime.

Tel Aviv, home to nearly half of the Zionist entity's population, was a war zone in the first weeks after October 7 when it was hit by Palestinian rockets but enjoyed relative safety for months afterward.

Following the strike, Tel Aviv has once again turned into a war zone and a target of the Yemeni forces.

Israeli official sources tried to downplay the omissions by claiming that the Yemeni drone was detected but assessed as harmless, which is hard to believe considering the vector, according to experts.

Israeli commentators, however, were shocked by the ineffectiveness of the regime's air defenses to protect the largest city in the occupied territories. 

Some news outlets, such as the Walla! website warned the population that in the event of a major war, around 5,000 drones would attack the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

Additionally, the Israeli intelligence site Intel Times commented on the incident of a Yemeni drone breaching Israeli air defenses, saying: "Today Tel Aviv, and tomorrow they will target the gas platform."

In addition to the major blow to national morale and security, the losers of the Yemeni operation are the Israeli military industry and the economy in general, as their vaunted air defense systems have once again been disgraced in the eyes of the world public.

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