Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group launched one of its deepest strikes on Israel in mid-May, using an explosive drone that directly hit one of Israel's most important air force surveillance systems.
These and other successful drone strikes have given the Iran-backed militant group another deadly option for an expected retaliation against Israel for an airstrike in Beirut last month that killed Hezbollah's top military commander Fuad Shukr.
"It's a threat that needs to be taken seriously," said Fabijan Hinz, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, referring to Hezbollah's drone capabilities.
Although Israel has built air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and David's Sling, to protect itself from Hezbollah's rocket and missile arsenal, less attention has been paid to the threat of drones.
"As a result, there has been less effort to build defense capabilities against drones," Hinz said.
Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles that can be controlled from a distance. Drones can enter, monitor and attack enemy territory more discreetly than missiles and rockets.
Hezbollah declared its drone strike in May a success, targeting a zeppelin used as part of Israel's missile defense system at a base about 35 kilometers from the Lebanese border.
The militants released a video they claimed showed their explosive Ababil drone flying towards the Sky Dew zeppelin, and later released photos of the downed aircraft.
The Israeli military confirmed that Hezbollah had scored a direct hit.
"This attack reflects an improvement in the accuracy and ability to circumvent Israeli air defenses," said a report by the Institute for National Security Studies, an independent think tank affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
Since beginning almost daily exchanges of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border in early October, Hezbollah has increasingly used drones to bypass Israeli air defense systems and attack their military positions along the border as well as deep inside Israel.
While Israel has intercepted hundreds of drones from Lebanon during the Israel-Hamas war, their air defense systems are not airtight, an Israeli security official said. Drones are smaller and slower than missiles and rockets, so they are harder to stop. This is especially true when they are launched close to the border and require a shorter reaction time to intercept.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly under Israeli security restrictions, said Israel's air defense systems had to contend with more drones during this war than ever before, and Israel responded by attacking launch sites.
A Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli military base near the northern city of Nahari two weeks ago wounded six people. One of the bloodiest drone attacks by this group took place in April, when one Israeli soldier was killed and 13 other soldiers and four civilians were wounded in the northern Israeli community of Arab Al Aramsheh.
Hezbollah also sent surveillance drones to film vital facilities in northern Israel, including those in Haifa, its suburbs and the Ramat David air base, southeast of the coastal city.
Although Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claims that the militant group can now produce drones on its own, their attacks have so far largely depended on Iran's Ababil and Shahed drones. They also used a drone, at least once, that fires Russian S5 guided missiles.
Hezbollah has increased its capabilities despite Israel killing some of the group's most important drone experts.
The most famous was Fuad Shukr, who Israel claimed was responsible for most of Hezbollah's most advanced weaponry, including missiles, long-range missiles and drones.
Senior Hezbollah operative Hassan Lakis, considered one of the group's drone masters, was killed near Beirut in 2013. The militants blamed Israel. More recent strikes in Syria, believed to have been carried out by Israel, have killed Iranian and Hezbollah drone experts, including an official from the aviation division of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
In its early days, Hezbollah used less technically advanced tactics, including paragliders, to attack behind enemy lines.
After Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 after an 18-year occupation, Hezbollah began using Iranian drones and sent the first Mirsad reconnaissance drone over Israeli airspace in 2004.
After the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Lakis, Hezbollah's drone master, took charge of the drone program.
Hezbollah has increased its use of drones for reconnaissance and strikes during its involvement in the Syrian conflict. As Lebanon negotiated indirectly in 2022 to demarcate its maritime border with Israel, the group sent three drones over one of Israel's largest gas facilities in the Mediterranean Sea before Israel shot them down.
Hezbollah continues to receive significant assistance from Iran for drones, and the militant group's experts are believed to be assembling the aircraft in Lebanon.
"Since Iran failed to achieve air superiority, it resorted to these types of aircraft," said retired Lebanese general and military expert Naji Malaeb, referring to the drones. He added that Russia had benefited from the purchase of hundreds of Iranian Shahed drones for use in its war against Ukraine.
In February, Ukrainian intelligence said that Iranian and Hezbollah experts were training Russian troops to fly Shahed-136 and Ababil-3 drones at an air base in central Syria. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have a military presence in Syria, where they fight alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In a 2022 speech, Nasrallah claimed that "we in Lebanon have been producing drones for a long time."
The Lebanese militant group is apparently still dependent on parts from Western countries, which could be an obstacle to mass production.
In mid-July, three people were arrested in Spain and one in Germany on suspicion of being members of a network that supplied Hezbollah with parts to make explosive drones for use in attacks on northern Israel.
The Spanish companies involved in the case, as well as others in Europe and around the world, bought items including electronic guidance components, propulsion propellers, gasoline engines, more than 200 electric motors and materials for the fuselage, wings and other parts of the drones, according to investigators.
Authorities believe Hezbollah has built several hundred drones with these components. Nevertheless, Iran remains Hezbollah's main supplier.
"The Israeli Air Force can fire missiles at different parts of Lebanon, and now Hezbollah has drones and missiles that can reach any part of Israel," said Iranian political analyst and political science professor Emad Absenas. He added that while the United States is arming its closest ally Israel, Iran is similarly arming groups such as Hezbollah.
translation: S. STRUGAR
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