Tel Aviv (AP): A large explosion rumbled through the streets of central Tel Aviv early Friday morning after an apparent drone strike caused shards of shrapnel to rain down and injure at least 10 people, authorities said.

Israel's military said that they were reviewing the explosion and increasing air patrols after the incident, which its initial inquiries determined was caused by “an aerial target."

It was not immediately clear how the strike evaded Israel's air defences or how Israel might respond.

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai on X called the attack a drone strike, though the military has not yet specified the nature of the attack. Yemen's Houthis have repeatedly launched drones and missiles toward Israel throughout the nine-month-long war in Gaza. But until Friday, all were intercepted by either Israel or Western allies with forces stationed in the region.

Local police said that the blast sounded at around 3:10 a.m. on Friday morning, reverberating to nearby cities and physically injuring at least 10 people. Tel Aviv District Commander Peretz Amar said officers could not locate the point of contact, suggesting the explosion occurred in the air.

“The force of the explosion caused damaged that is not great but is spread over a large area. At the moment we don't know what the object was,” Amar said.

Israel possesses a multilayered aerial defence system, capable of intercepting threats ranging from long-range ballistic missiles to drones and short-range missiles. These various systems have intercepted thousands of projectiles throughout the war. But officials warn they are not 100% effective, and the systems appear to have struggled against small and hard-to-detect attack drones. It was not known which, if any, system was deployed.

Like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are backed by Israel's arch enemy, Iran. Israel for the most part also has avoided a direct confrontation with Iran throughout the war. Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel during a single incident in April in response to Israel's alleged assassination of a pair of Iranian generals in Syria at the time.

 

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Bareilly (UP), Nov 24: Three people died when their car fell into the Ramganga river from a partially constructed bridge here on Sunday, police said, adding that they suspect the driver was misled by its navigation system into taking the unsafe route.

The accident occurred around 10 am on the Khalpur-Dataganj road when the victims were travelling from Bareilly to Dataganj in the Badaun district, they said.

"Earlier this year, floods had caused the front portion of the bridge to collapse into the river, but this change had not been updated in the system," Circle Officer Ashutosh Shivam said.

The driver was using a navigation system and did not realise that the bridge was unsafe, driving the car off the damaged section, the police said.

There were no safety barriers or warning signs on the approach to the damaged bridge, leading to the fatal accident, Shivam said.

Upon receiving information, police teams from Faridpur, Bareilly and Dataganj police station rushed to the spot. They recovered the vehicle and the bodies from the river, Shivam added.

The circle officer said that bodies had been sent for post-mortem. Further investigation into the matter is underway.