The Houthis’ unprecedented July 19 drone attack against Tel Aviv from Yemen caught Israelis by surprise, piercing the country’s battle-tested defenses and exposing vulnerabilities that the Yemen-based rebels were ready and willing to exploit.
“The July 19 drone attack showed the importance of the human factor as well as training and mission planning in any military situation,” Federico Borsari, a defense expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Business Insider.
“On the Houthi side, it confirms a quite sophisticated mission planning based on attacking Israel from the least expected direction — the Mediterranean Sea.”
The Houthis carried out the attack using an extended-range Samad drone that slowly flew an estimated 1,600 miles before crashing into a Tel Aviv apartment building not far from the US embassy, killing one and injuring at least 10.
“The Houthis carefully selected the drone’s flight path and waypoints to make it fly at a relatively low altitude and along the Eritrean, Sudanese, and Egyptian coastline to minimize its exposure to Western ship-based radars and air defense assets in the Red Sea,” Borsari said.
“The time of the attack is also not casual, as night makes it more difficult to identify the drone without low-light and thermal sensors.”
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