A deadly Houthi attack on Tel Aviv is forcing Israel to rethink its drone defenses

• The Houthis attacked Tel Aviv with a long-range drone that attacked from an unexpected direction.
• Sensors picked up the unidentified aircraft but air defense crews failed to try to identify it.
• Like many other nations, Israel is seeking lower-cost ways to defeat drones than missiles.

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."

The CEPA analyst explained that on the Israeli side, "human error in the identification process" — possibly the result of poor communication, training, or even negligence — was the most likely factor behind the failure to intercept. Sensors picked up the unidentified aircraft but air defense crews failed to try to identify it, a sign that they likely weren't focused on Israel's westerly approaches as a threat sector.

"This confirms that technology alone, even for one of the most advanced air defense systems in the world, is not enough to provide effective protection," Borsari said. "Technology works only together with training (a skilled human component) and effective tactics."

One challenge for Israeli troops is that they must maintain situational awareness of more threat sectors while Houthi rebels may only have a limited arsenal of drones with the long-range to fly roundabout routes to attack from new directions. Israel may also need to work more closely with partners like Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia for warning about suspicious air tracks.

Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the risk intelligence company RANE, believes the July 19 incident can be attributed to two primary factors.

"Firstly, the advanced Houthi drone was launched for the first time, following an atypical flight path that likely caught the Israelis off guard," Khoueiry told BI. "Secondly, although Israeli forces detected the drone, they failed to recognize it as a threat, a human error similar to the one that occurred at Tower 22 in Jordan with US forces earlier this year."

"Moving forward, the Israelis will likely take into account such unconventional drone paths from the Houthis, such as in the North, where they already anticipate Hezbollah drones coming in from the Mediterranean," Khoueiry said.

"To prevent a similar Houthi attack, Israel will likely increase vigilance towards threats from the south by enhancing air defenses in Eilat and the Red Sea, and by collaborating more closely with regional partners for early detection of incoming threats."

'A more cunning approach'

Following the deadly attack, the Israeli military promptly increased air patrols to protect Israeli airspace. The next day, Israeli fighter jets carried out a long-range airstrike against Yemen's Houthi-controlled Hodeidah port, killing six and injuring over 80. The Israeli military anticipates Yemen will become a more central theater in the regional conflict that began in October in light of the Tel Aviv attack and the retaliation against Hodeidah. The Iran-backed Houthis have also waged war on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, falsely claiming that their attacks would be limited to ships linked to Israel.

Sebastien Roblin, a widely published military-aviation journalist, believes Israel's overall track record of defending against Houthi drones and missiles remains "very good," considering this was the first successful attack from Yemen. Since October, the Houthis have fired over 200 missiles and drones at Israel in support of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The US-led naval task force in the Red Sea intercepted several of them.

"The successful Houthi attack on July 19 did reflect a more cunning approach to avoiding the gauntlet of air defenses along the Red Sea by routing over Eritrea and Sudan," Roblin told BI. "However, its success still depended on surprise too."

"The incident has the potential to inoculate vulnerability at least of that specific (Mediterranean) blindspot — Houthis will have to look for others, just as Hezbollah has managed to identify and exploit some tactical-level gaps to harry IDF border forces," Roblin said.

"While Israeli air defenses have had successes and failures versus prior drone intrusions (mostly by Hezbollah), I'm dubious that this in particular heralds a new era of vulnerability," Roblin added. "Nor do I think Houthis can generate enough numbers over such long distances for an effective saturation strategy."

Nevertheless, the attack has some important lessons and was a clear-cut reminder that drones, unlike ballistic missiles, can approach their targets from unexpected and less predictable angles.

"Israel may increase patrols by its G.550 Eitam or 707 airborne early warning planes to improve monitoring down the Red Sea corridor, perhaps extending coverage further sideways over Eritrea and Sudan," Roblin added. "But it has only three G.550 conformal airborne early warning aircraft and two 707 AEWs, so greater coverage can be surged but likely not sustained indefinitely."

Israel's defenses

Fighter jets have also proven effective against drones. When Iran launched an unprecedented missile and drone barrage against Israel in April, Israeli, British, French, and Jordanian fighters intercepted all the drones before they reached Israel.

"Fighter jets with both air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions offer great flexibility as they can conduct defensive counter-air missions against incoming drones as well as left-of-launch strikes against the enemy's drone ground elements, including launchers, operators, and control stations," CEPA's Borsari said.

"However, this is not cost-effective in the long term, so Israel must combine this option with ground-based solutions."

Roblin also noted that fighters are a "cost-inefficient" way of intercepting drones, given the cost of their air-to-air missiles.

"So far, Israel and the US Navy and others in the region have been able to pay the bill in order to attrit Houthi drones before they get close," Roblin said. "The IDF stated it was increasing fighter patrols in response to the July 19 attack, though should there be a war with Hezbollah, it might be forced to reduce patrols again as more fighters are assigned offensive missions."

Israel also has a multifaceted air defense network designed to guard its territory from threats from inexpensive rockets to ballistic missiles and has been adapting more defenses to counter drones.

Existing Israeli defenses, such as the well-known Iron Dome, can detect and down these drones.

The Israeli military is preparing the redeployment of gun-based air defenses for point defense of military bases and sensitive infrastructure in northern Israel against repeated Hezbollah drone attacks. These may be the six-barrel M61 Vulcan cannons Israel is looking into mounting atop armored vehicles as a cost-effective defense against these drones.

"Traditional anti-aircraft guns (preferably mobile and radar-guided) can certainly play a role in defending against drones, especially for short-range and point defense around critical infrastructure and other sensitive targets," Borsari said. "However, they are only part of the C-UAS (counter-unmanned aerial systems) solution. Israel needs to build a layered defense that also includes easy-to-manufacture and cost-effective interceptors."

Such systems could include the Iron Dome's Tamir interceptors, US-made Coyote Block 3 missiles, advanced precision kill system (APKWS) laser-guided rockets, electronic warfare, and directed energy weapons like Israel's upcoming Iron Beam system.

Borsari argued that Israel needs to strengthen its "already capable" air defenses to deal with "simultaneous multi-type saturation attacks" from different directions, including small and medium size drones "at the lower end of the spectrum" in addition to traditional cruise and ballistic missiles.

"This means integrating low-tier air defense capabilities at scale, combining different types of effectors with an eye on cost-effectiveness," Borsari said. "These include electronic warfare, anti-aircraft artillery, cheap guided interceptors, decoys, and also directed energy solutions. Israel has access to all these solutions, but it should scale them up."

Roblin also suggested Israel could explore cheaper guided weapons for destroying drones costing in "the low $10,000s instead of hundreds of thousands, or even $1 million+" that many traditional air-to-air missiles cost. For example, "trying to combo a laser-targeter with the APKWS laser-guided rocket/missile" or adopting the Tamir interceptor missile for aerial use.

Israel has already deployed a naval version of the Iron Dome, the C-Dome, which has intercepted drones launched by Hezbollah.

"More rapid deployment of the naval C-Dome system mounted on Israeli Navy Sa'ar-6 corvettes also seems an interesting possibility for a forward-deployable surface-based air defense capability that could sponge up drone attacks using Tamir missiles," Roblin said.

RANE's Khoueiry also sees that corvettes armed with these could play a "significant role" in intercepting drones and missiles in the Red Sea.

"However, unless the Houthis target the southern port city of Eilat, they are likely to continue aiming at other Israeli cities and the Eastern Mediterranean, using pathways that go over Egyptian or Saudi airspaces," Khoueiry said.