Yemen’s “Yafa” Kamikaze Drone

Information is just coming in on the “Yafa” (“Jaffa”; called “Tel Aviv” by Israelis) UAV that struck near the U.S. Consulate in Tel Aviv on Friday, 19 July 2024, ca. 3:10 a.m. Preliminary details on the “kamikaze” drone, along with three videos, are in the article.

Video and images were released today by Ansarallah of the suicide drone, purportedly manufactured indigenously, but doubtless made in Iran, or made in Yemen with Iranian technical support.

Analysis

Full technical specifics are unavailable, but the “suicide” or “kamikaze” drone has a range of ca. 2,600 km (at least), having flown undetected from Yemen through Eritrea, the Sudan, Egypt, Sinai, and the Mediterranean before striking Tel Aviv. It passed through Israel’s “vaunted” air defenses, which as I have stated, are not quite as robust as advertised. Yafa has a high-explosive warhead, which detonated successfully (see image above and two videos). The UAV is of the Samad family (i.e., the vaunted “Shahid” family of Iranian UAVs), but has larger dimensions than its brothers. Yafa clearly has in-built technologies to disrupt and bypass air defense systems. The range capacity allows Yafa’s operator flexibility in planning way-points, allowing it to attack from different vectors. Yafa is low cost—as is the case with many Iranian UAV and missile systems—and an excellent tool for attrition warfare.

Note

I shall write later about the implications of Israel’s attack on oil facilities in Hodeida, Yemen, on 20 July. The gist being that Israel has opened another front, while it can barely handle the northern front. This will not end well—for Israel.