A Houthi drone struck the arrivals hall at Ramon Airport on Sunday afternoon, briefly closing the airspace over Israel’s southern gateway and injuring travelers with shrapnel. It came minutes after an earlier alert was lifted in the Western Negev.
What happened is already clear enough to set priorities. According to the IDF, several UAVs were launched from Yemen. Two were intercepted outside Israeli territory. Sirens had sounded earlier near the Egyptian border. The Home Front Command ended that alert within minutes, and then another drone slipped through and hit Ramon without sirens. The army’s initial line that “alerts were activated according to policy” is not reassuring because the policy did not prevent a strike on a civilian terminal.
Yonah Jeremy Bob, writing in The Jerusalem Post, described what likely made this attack succeed: “It appears that this latest attack employed complex diversion and surprise tactics to achieve the Houthis’ goals.” That is the heart of the matter. A patient adversary probed our routines, waited for the all-clear, and then exploited a seam between vigilance and normalcy. The lesson is procedural, not only technological.
Our analyst Seth J. Frantzman has tracked the Houthi campaign for years and highlighted the paradox we saw again on Sunday. “The Houthi drone threat has now become a trickle. However, the Ramon attack shows that it is still a threat and could become dangerous again.” He also noted that many interceptions now occur quietly, often without sirens, which can create a dangerous impression that the threat has been defeated.
Israel’s defenses have outpaced most of the Iranian proxy drone threat since October 7. Interceptions are frequent and effective. The public often does not hear about them. That is good news overall, but it creates two risks. First, the public does not understand when sirens do or do not sound, which erodes trust when a strike lands without warning. Second, decision makers may accept an “all-clear” doctrine that stands residents down too quickly in order to restore normal life. Sunday shows that the period after an initial alert is exactly when follow-on threats may arrive.
Five urgent fixes
First, tighten the all-clear doctrine. If an initial wave is intercepted, air defenses must assume a second act. The interval between lifting shelter orders and returning to full routine must be extended in high-risk sectors. This is inconvenient. It is also necessary.
Second, rebalance resources in the South. Regional leaders have warned that the security architecture along the Egyptian frontier has been strained since the Iran war. Ramon is smaller than Ben-Gurion Airport, but it is a national lifeline for Eilat, tourism, and domestic connectivity. A smaller airport still deserves resilient radar coverage, ready interceptors, and rapid deconfliction across the Egyptian and Jordanian vectors. Geography and radar geometry matter.
Third, fix the siren and messaging gap. If a drone can hit an arrivals hall without sirens, the public will ask what the sirens are for. There may be technical reasons to withhold alarms in certain intercept scenarios, but the default should be transparency. The Home Front Command should publish a plain-language explainer this week: which sensors trigger sirens, which do not, how cross-border trajectories are handled, and what changes on days when multiple threats are tracked. Confidence is part of defense.
Fourth, plan for attrition, not spectacle. Ukraine has shown how cheap loitering munitions can become mass weapons. Even if the Houthis now launch a trickle, doctrine must assume a surge or a coordinated multi-vector attempt designed to overwhelm radars and interceptors.
Fifth, harden Ramon itself. Glass façades, rooflines, and public-facing queues are soft targets. There are practical mitigations that do not turn an airport into a bunker: blast-film retrofits, redesigned standoff distances for drop-off lanes, redundant power and communications, and short sheltering drills tailored to terminal geometry.
Diplomacy matters too. Cairo and Amman are not the source of these attacks, yet their airspace and border regions are part of the battlespace. Quiet, persistent coordination to close radar shadows and share tracks will save lives on both sides. The same is true at sea, where Houthi harassment has throttled Eilat’s port and shipping lanes.
Finally, ensure that the next time the Home Front Command ends an alert, every relevant unit is still hunting for a follow-on wave, and every traveler at Ramon is safer than they were this week.