According to the IDF, the drone left Yemen, flying west toward Sudan. It then turned north, flying through Sudan for an extended period until reaching southern Egypt. From southern Egypt, it continued to fly north, all the way until it reached the Sinai, and then cut east into the Mediterranean Sea.

From the Mediterranean Sea, the Houthi drone continued to travel east, cutting slightly south to strike Tel Aviv when it got closer to the Israeli coastline.

Although Yemen is nominally 1,800 kilometers from Israel, the deceptive path that the Houthis selected for the drone led it to travel much farther, at 2,600 kilometers for around 16 hours. The IDF said that Iran and the Houthis replaced the original standard engine of the Samad 3 to allow it to travel the extra distance and better deceive Israel with its trajectory.

When it was relatively far out over the Mediterranean from Tel Aviv, a portion of Israel’s radar defenses picked it up as a blip on the air defense screen. However, the soldier observing that monitor either missed the blip entirely or dismissed it as a mere blip, given the numerous false blips over the past nine months.

In addition, the IDF said that a drone attacking from Israel’s opposite eastern border appeared on the same radar screen around the same time, suggesting that the Houthis might have set the radar operator up with a simultaneous distraction.

Although the IDF did not provide an exact explanation for the radar operator’s failure, it made it clear that it was not considered a significantly unprofessional miss, but rather a low-grade error that, given the circumstances, could have happened to almost any operator. Moving forward, the IDF did say that it was doubling the number of radar operators. (JPost / VFI News)