BEIRUT: Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group carried out one of its deepest strikes in Israel in mid-May, using an explosive drone that directly hit one of the army's surveillance systems. Israel's most important space.
This and other successful drone strikes have provided another deadly option for the Iranian-backed militant group in expected retaliation against Israel for its airstrike in Beirut last month that killed its commander Hezbollah soldier Fouad Shukur.
“This is a threat that must be taken seriously,” said Fabian Hinz, a fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, about Hezbollah's drone capabilities.
While Israel has built air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and the Sling David to guard against Hezbollah's rockets and anti-missile weapons, it has paid little attention to the drone threat.
“And as a result, there's been less effort to build security capabilities” with drones, Hinz said.
Drones, or UAVS, are unmanned aerial vehicles that can operate remotely. Drones can penetrate, monitor and attack enemy territory more discreetly than missiles and rockets.
Hezbollah claimed the success of its drone strike in May, which targeted a bomb used as part of an Israeli missile defense system at a base about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Lebanese border. .
The militants released a video showing what they said was an exploding Ababil drone flying towards the Sky Dew blimp, and then released images of the crashed plane.
The Israeli military confirmed that Hezbollah was directly involved in the attack.
“This attack represents an improvement in the reliability and deterrence capabilities of Israeli air defenses,” said a report published by the Institute for National Security Studies, an independent organization affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
Since daily firefights began on the Lebanon-Israel border in early October, Hezbollah has increasingly used drones to evade Israeli air defenses and strike at military bases along the border, as well as inside Israel.
While Israel intercepted hundreds of drones from Lebanon during the Israel-Hamas war, its air defense system is not airtight, an Israeli official said. Drones are smaller and slower than missiles and rockets, so they are difficult to stop. This is especially true when they are launched from near the border and require a shorter reaction time to block.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly due to Israeli security restrictions, said Israel's air defense system had to deal with more drones during this war than ever before. and Israel responded by attacking its launch site.
On Tuesday, a Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli army base near the northern town of Nahariya injured six people. One of the group's deadliest drone attacks was in April, killing one Israeli soldier and wounding 13 others plus four civilians in the northern Israeli community of Arab Al-Aramsheh.
Hezbollah also sent surveillance drones that photographed vital infrastructure in northern Israel, including in Haifa, its suburbs and the Ramat David Airbase, southeast of the coastal city.
While Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has boasted that the militant group can now build its own drones, its attacks so far have relied mainly on Iranian-made Ababil and Shahed drones. He also used at least one drone that fired a Russian guided S5 missile.
Hezbollah's capabilities have increased despite Israel killing some of its drone specialists.
The most famous is Shukur, who Israel says is responsible for most of Hezbollah's most powerful weapons, including rockets, long-range missiles and drones.
In 2013, a senior Hezbollah operative, Hassan Lakkis, believed to be one of the masterminds of the drone, was shot dead in southern Beirut. The group blamed Israel. A recent strike in Syria attributed to Israel killed Iranian and Hezbollah drone experts, including an official in Iran's Revolutionary Guard air force.
Initially, Hezbollah used lower-tech 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-made drones and launched its first Mirsad spy drone into Israeli airspace. in 2004.
After the Israel-Hezbollah 34-day war in 2006, Hezbollah drone mastermind Lakkis took over the drone program.
Hezbollah has increased its use of drones for reconnaissance and strikes during its involvement in the war in Syria. In 2022, when Lebanon was indirectly negotiating to demarcate its maritime border with Israel, it sent three drones to one of Israel's largest gas fields in the Mediterranean. the group before Israel overthrew them.
Hezbollah's drone program continues to receive substantial aid from Iran, and the UAVs are believed to have been assembled by experts from the militant group in Lebanon.
“Since Iran has not been able to achieve superiority from the air, it has used this type of aircraft,” said Naji Malaaeb, a retired Lebanese general and military expert, referring to drones. He added that Russia has 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 soldiers to use Shahed-136 and Ababil-3 drones at air bases in central Syria. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have a military presence in Syria, where they have fought alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces.
In a speech in 2022, Nasrallah boasted that “we are in Lebanon, and we started producing drones a long time ago.”
It seems that the Lebanese militant group still relies on parts from Western countries, which could be a barrier to mass production.
In mid-July, three people were arrested in Spain and one in Germany on suspicion of being part of a network that supplied Hezbollah with parts to build explosive drones for use in attacks in northern Israel.
The Spanish companies involved, like others in Europe and around the world, bought items including electronic steering components, propulsion propellers, gasoline engines, more than 200 electric motors and equipment for the fuselage, wings and other drone parts, investigators said.
Authorities believe Hezbollah may have built hundreds of drones with these components. However, Iran remains Hezbollah's main supplier.
“The Israeli air force can fire missiles into different parts of Lebanon, and now Hezbollah has drones and missiles that can reach all parts of Israel,” said political analyst and political science professor Emad Abshenass. Iranian. He added that while arming its closest ally, Israel, Iran is doing the same by arming groups like Hezbollah.
