The IDF said it downed a hostile drone flying over the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat on Sunday night.
There were no reports of injuries or damages as a result of the interception. No sirens sounded in Eilat, as there was no threat to civilians, the military said before later publishing footage of the interception.
It marked the second-ever successful interception carried out by a ship-mounted Iron Dome missile defense system known as C-Dome, with the first taking place less than a week earlier.
Sunday’s UAV was believed to have been launched from Yemen and was downed by a missile fired from one of the Navy’s Sa’ar 6-class corvettes.
The Navy’s Sa’ar 6-class corvettes are normally tasked with guarding the natural gas platforms off Israel’s coast as well as its shipping lanes.
Amid repeated wartime cruise missile, drone, and ballistic missile attacks by the Houthis, the Navy announced in December that it had also deployed the INS “Magen” Sa’ar 6-class corvette to the Red Sea for the first time.
The C-Dome was deployed for the first time on April 8 after the military tracked a drone that had entered Israeli airspace also near Eilat. There were no reports of damage or injuries in that incident either.
Much like the ground version of the Iron Dome, the Defense Ministry says that the C-Dome is capable of downing rockets, cruise missiles, and drones.
The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a coalition of Iran-backed paramilitary groups, claimed responsibility for the April 8 drone launch, claiming to have aimed at an unspecified “vital target” in Israel as well as the Hatzerim Airbase near Beersheba.
Recent months have seen numerous attacks on the Eilat area carried out by Iran-backed groups such as Yemen’s Houthis, the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, and a group in Syria linked to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
In November, a school in Eilat was hit by a drone launched from Syria; in March, a cruise missile fired from Yemen struck an open area north of the city; earlier this month, a drone launched from Iraq struck a Navy hangar in the Eilat Bay; and also this month, a drone struck an open area in Jordan near southern Israel’s Ramon Airport.
The Navy’s Sa’ar 6-class corvettes are normally tasked with guarding the natural gas platforms off Israel’s coast as well as its shipping lanes.
Amid repeated wartime cruise missile, drone, and ballistic missile attacks by the Houthis, the Navy announced in December that it had also deployed the INS “Magen” Sa’ar 6-class corvette to the Red Sea for the first time.