Transcript
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Some important developments pertaining to Israel late this weekend. NPR's Greg Myre rejoins us now from Tel Aviv. Greg, thanks for being with us.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Good to be here, Scott.
SIMON: First, Israel appeared to be surprised by a drone attack in Tel Aviv yesterday. What happened?
MYRE: Yeah. Scott, when you're in Tel Aviv, and the beachfront, in particular, you just don't feel the war that's taking place in Gaza less than 50 miles down the Mediterranean coast. Surfers are out at dawn. Young people are playing volleyball under the lights until very late at night. The restaurants are full. But just after 3 a.m. Friday, a large drone came in over the Mediterranean. It crashed into an apartment building, a block off the beach. Jonathan Karten and some friends were up late on the apartment balcony at the time of the attack.
JONATHAN KARTEN: Then a friend of mine said, cool, what's that? What's that over there? I turned my head to see, and then I heard a buzzing, like an F-35, but it was only maybe 30 meters above sea level, so it was strange. And then I saw a red and orange blast. I felt this heat, blowback.
MYRE: One man was killed and several people injured. The drone hit just a block from the U.S. Embassy branch office and shattered windows for several blocks.
SIMON: And who claims responsibility for the attack?
MYRE: The Houthi militia in Yemen, which means this drone traveled hundreds of miles to reach Tel Aviv. And this is not the kind of attack Israel has typically faced. It was dealing with thousands of Hamas rockets coming from the south, out of Gaza, though that's been halted almost entirely. It's still combating Hezbollah rockets that rain down daily in the north from Lebanon.
But until Friday, Tel Aviv hadn't really encountered an aerial attack coming from the Mediterranean to the West. And this apparently caught Israel off guard. The military said its air defense system did not detect the threat. There were no sirens or other warnings, and the military called it human error.
SIMON: Also, late this week, the U.N.'s International Court of Justice ruled that settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem violate international law. What has been the reaction in Israel and in the territories?
MYRE: Yeah. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, who's based in the West Bank, called it historic. In contrast, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the ruling, saying, quote, "the Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land."
A couple of important points here. This is an advisory, a nonbinding opinion. The U.N. General Assembly requested this formal opinion. Though it's been saying, essentially, the same thing about Israeli settlements for decades, that they're unlawful, illegal. And yet, they just keep growing, and they're expanding very rapidly right now. And the Palestinians say, there's simply no way to create a viable state with all these settlers spread across these areas.
SIMON: And the ruling comes just as Prime Minister Netanyahu plans to visit the U.S. What are you going to be watching for?
MYRE: Well, we should all be looking for signs of tension in the U.S.-Israel relationship and, I think, the mixed reaction Netanyahu is likely to get. President Biden has grown frustrated with the way Israel has prosecuted the war in Gaza, especially the very high civilian death toll.
Now, the two leaders are expected to meet if Biden has sufficiently recovered from his bout with COVID. And Netanyahu is addressing a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday. So expect strong support from Republicans and sharp criticism from at least some Democrats.
SIMON: NPR's Greg Myre in Tel Aviv, thanks so much for being with us.
MYRE: Sure thing, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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