South Africans stirred but not shaken by Houthi attack

South African Ronli Dorfman was sleeping peacefully in a Tel Aviv hotel in the early hours of Friday, 19 July, when she heard an explosion that awoke her from the deepest of sleeps. “The boom was so intense that I actually thought the whole area was going to start imploding,” she says. “It just felt like everything was going to start collapsing.”

Dorfman has heard bombs before while spending a few weeks in the south of Israel with the current Gaza war not far away, but she says “this was on another level”. She didn’t understand why she hadn’t heard a siren, or why the Iron Dome hadn’t intercepted what sounded like a rocket attack.

“I thought it could have been Hezbollah, and my first reaction to that was, ‘This isn’t good news,’ because I know it would be serious if war broke out in the north,” she says. “And if that’s the case, then this is a bit of a problem because I’m sitting here, and they’ve just attacked Tel Aviv, and what’s coming next? Then, things start going through your mind like, ‘What happens if this building didn’t go unscathed and it collapses?’ It was quite terrifying.”

She was grateful to find out that her hotel was fine, and that it wasn’t a Hezbollah attack, but was still concerned that it had come from the Houthis, bringing war to the heart of Tel Aviv and possibly aiming to hit the nearby United States (US) embassy.

At the time, the Israel Defense Forces said, “During the night, an unmanned aerial vehicle entered Israel from the direction of the sea from the west. It appears that it was a Simad 3 UAV, which we estimate travelled from Yemen to Tel Aviv. The Simad 3 is an Iranian weapon system that has probably been upgraded to extend its flight range. As a result of the impact, one civilian was killed and eight civilians lightly injured.” Initial reports suggested the aircraft was identified, but the sirens weren’t sounded due to human error.

South African oleh Samuel Hyde says he was woken up “even though I live in a completely different part of town. It was very loud. It was shocking to see the ease with which the drone could enter Israel without any siren alert. However, I can’t say I’m particularly shaken by it. On 7 October, I was out stocking up on groceries and a rocket decimated an apartment block less than 100m from where I was standing. Perhaps that numbed me to the threat.”

A fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, Hyde says, “It’s concerning that something like that was put down to human error. Of course, it’s possible and these things can happen, but it was one drone. If it escalates to a situation where there’s 200 coming and they’re flying at a low level like that, one would hope that they’d be able to pick them up, otherwise it would have really catastrophic effects.

“What it means for the war is that it’s probably going to remain contained,” he says. “Things were really heating up between Israel and Hezbollah on the northern front, and I don’t think Iran is ready to sacrifice Hezbollah in the way that it allowed Hamas to be sacrificed. The firing of the drone from the Houthis was a distraction to balance out ‘the heat’ in the north.”

Israel retaliated on Sunday, 21 July, with airstrikes against the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida in western Yemen in an operation, dubbed “Outstretched Arm”. According to the military, the strike on the fuel depot was a major blow to the Houthi economy, and the cranes taken out of service prevents the group from bringing in more Iranian weapons via the port that has been used to target Israel along with commercial and military ships in the Red Sea.

A South African oleh who asked not to be named to protect his privacy says, “The explosion was about a kilometre and a half away from us, and it was a huge boom. People need to know that this isn’t just happening in the heart of Tel Aviv, this is happening all over Israel, so it’s not just an isolated incident. The world needs to understand that everyone is targeted, not just Jews. It’s also targeting Muslims, Druze, and Christians. The rockets don’t discriminate. We need the world to be behind us all, and we need to be strong throughout the whole country, not just when it happens in Tel Aviv.”

A South African businessman speaking anonymously to avoid backlash in South Africa says he was also staying in a hotel nearby when the explosion woke him and his family. Though his children and wife panicked, “I was in denial. It was terrifying, but I just never thought anything like that could happen in Tel Aviv, and there hadn’t been any siren.”

He says there was no protocol about going into a shelter, which added to the chaos and confusion. Eventually he went out into the street and saw the blown-out windows, damaged cars, and people in shock. Later, in daylight, he took harrowing photographs of the damage.

“It was incredibly disconcerting to see families from the north who were living in my hotel and others in the area, with kids coming out, crying, clearly traumatised. That’s when it really hit home. But Israelis are amazingly resilient, and a sense of calm quickly prevailed.

“What I found sad was that the next day, there was media from all over world,” he says. “Meanwhile, no-one cares about attacks on the north, which are happening daily. It’s so hypocritical. I also think it definitely was aimed at the US embassy, and the US should acknowledge it and respond – or is it going to let anyone attack its embassy?”

He and his family come to Israel on holiday every year, and say they still feel safe in Tel Aviv and are out and about enjoying everything Israel has to offer. “It took us a long time to fall back asleep that night, and we’ve never experienced anything like it before. However, it hasn’t made us want to run away. In fact, we want to stay longer.”