The Iran-backed Houthi militia claimed responsibility for a rare drone attack in central Tel Aviv that crashed into a building near the United States Embassy branch office early Friday, killing at least one person and wounding eight others.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, told reporters that Israel’s defense systems had apparently picked up the drone but failed to register it as a threat. No air-raid sirens were activated to warn civilians of the attack, despite Israel’s extensive aerial defense system.

“We are investigating why we did not identify it, attack it and intercept it,” Admiral Hagari said.

The Israeli military said the drone had likely flown from Yemen, where the Houthis are based, before approaching Tel Aviv from the coast. Video posted on X and verified by The New York Times shows what appears to be a unmanned aerial vehicle approaching west of Tel Aviv, followed by a blast at the location of the strike.

The two sides offered differing accounts of the type of drone used in the attack.

Nasruddin Amer, a Houthi spokesman, said in an interview that the drone, called Yaffa, had been fully manufactured in Yemen and that it had not previously been used for direct operational purposes. He said the drone bore technologies that made it difficult to detect.

But Admiral Hagari told reporters that the drone was a Samad-3, an Iranian model, that had been adapted for long-distance flight. He denied that it had stealth capabilities that enabled it to evade Israeli surveillance.

Mr. Amer said that the attack was a response to “an escalation in massacres against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” and that the Houthis would halt their assaults only when the war in Gaza ends and Israel’s blockade of the enclave is lifted. He added that Iran was not involved in the decision to carry out the attack on Tel Aviv, but he said the Houthis had updated the Iranians afterward.