Tel Aviv locals describe damaged homes, blow to trust in army after deadly drone strike
Engine from drone falls on balcony of man’s apartment: ‘The entire home is covered in glass’; failure to shoot down UAV reaffirms northern evacuees’ disillusionment with military
Tel Aviv residents dealt with property damage and questioned their sense of security after an explosive-laden drone launched by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen struck an apartment building in the city, killing a man in the early hours of Friday morning. The victim was later named as Yevgeny Ferder, 50, who reportedly worked at Momo’s Hostel, adjacent to where the drone struck. His niece said he immigrated to Israel some 30 years ago, and had served in an IDF combat unit and in the IDF reserves.
The incident left many residents shocked and dismayed that even after nine months of war and the army’s heightened alertness, a drone was able to penetrate the country’s defense system without triggering any sirens. An initial investigation carried out by the Israeli Air Force said human error resulted in air defenses not engaging the craft.
The drone directly impacted an apartment building in Tel Aviv at 3:12 a.m.
The aircraft, identified by the IDF as an Iranian-made Samad-3 which had been modified to have an extended range, had taken several hours to reach Israel, flying at low altitude, according to the probe.
Erez Ram narrowly escaped physical harm after the drone’s engine fell on his balcony, leaving shattered glass throughout the residence.
“This is something I’ve never seen. A drone fell on my home. Everything blew up. God forbid. The entire home is covered in glass,” he said in a video posted on Facebook.
המנוע של הכטב"מ שנפל בתוך דירה בתל אביב
צילום: ארז רם pic.twitter.com/J8DpNnafUV— Gera. Belik (@gershon27) July 19, 2024
Speaking to the Ynet news site, he described being awake in his lounge when he saw the explosion, which shattered his windows.
He then went out to his balcony, where he found the smoking engine.
“The bomb squad came and everything was ok. In the first minute I admit I was terribly shocked, then I realized it wasn’t active so I chose to start laughing and took videos of it,” he said. “At the end of the day, it was very random. A drone from the sky landed on my house.”
He said his apartment was still “habitable,” and he would work to clean up and repair what was broken in the coming week.
New footage shows the Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv early this morning. pic.twitter.com/aEuF8cjIwU
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) July 19, 2024
Aviel, who said his home was slightly damaged by the explosion, told the Kan public broadcaster he had never heard such a loud explosion in his life.
“After seven months of reserve duty, I thought we were leaving the country in a slightly better situation. And now this happens, which is very disappointing,” he said.
Many of the roughly 60,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes in northern Israel due to daily Hezbollah attacks have been housed in hotels in the area.
For many of them, it reaffirmed feelings of disillusionment with how the military has handled the war over the past nine months.
Yossi Nevi, a retired evacuee from Kiryat Shmona living in a nearby hotel in Tel Aviv said the blast shook him awake and decreased his faith in the army’s management of the war.
He said many expected such a strike to come from the north, which the military said had not been the case.
Hearing it was a human error, Nevi said, made him lose “all trust in the army, not that I had much after the past nine months.”
Eldad Namdar, who owns a camera store next to the intersection where the drone exploded, said some of the items in his shop had fallen but there was no major damage. While he hopes the war ends soon, he also wants it to be concluded in a way that secures his future.
“I don’t want this to happen again in six months, I want them to finish this situation until the end,” he said.
The blast from the drone was around 100 meters (yards) from an annex of the US embassy in Israel.
“It woke me up because the vibration of the sound was like a 747 coming in,” said Kenneth Davis, an Israeli who was staying in a hotel opposite the struck building.
“And then the explosion… everything blew out in the room, the windows and things from the ceiling, and it was on me, nothing heavy, but lots of pieces of stuff,” he told AFPTV.
Tespel Aragyi told Ynet the explosion occurred a moment before he entered the convenience store on the ground floor of the building that was hit.
“I heard a whistle followed by the explosion. The building then caught fire,” he said.
Yochai Afek, who lives on the same street as the building that was hit, told Channel 12 that he and his wife awoke to the sound of the explosion that “shook the building,” and then saw from the window his car caught alight.
“We went down quickly and tried to put it out with a hose until firefighters came. The entire neighborhood came outside,” he said.
Another eyewitness told Channel 12 he was with a friend at the beach when he saw the drone “at the height of a building” pass by.
“I said to everyone, hear that? It crashed into a building. Not a second passed, and we saw yellow in the sky. It came from the sea, without a siren or anything,” he said.
The Times of Israel Community.