BEIRUT: Lebanon's Hezbollah launched one of its most devastating attacks on Israel in mid-May, using explosive drones that directly hit one of Israel's most important air surveillance systems.
This and other successful drone strikes give the Iranian-backed terrorist group another killing option in its retaliation for Israel's expected Beirut airstrike last month that killed top Hezbollah commander General Fouad Shukur.
“This is a threat that needs to be taken seriously,” said Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Although Israel has built air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and David's Sling, to protect against Hezbollah rockets and missiles, the drone threat has been given less focus.
“And as a result, there has been less effort to build a drone defense capability,” Hinz said.
Drones, or UAVs, are unmanned aerial vehicles that can be remotely controlled. Drones can provide more sophisticated surveillance and attack capabilities than missiles and rockets.
Hezbollah announced the success of a drone strike in May that hit an airship used as part of an Israeli missile defense system at a base about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Lebanese border.
The terrorist group released images showing what they said was their Ababil drone bombing the Sky Dew airship and later released photos of the plane being shot down.
The Israeli military confirmed that Hezbollah had carried out a direct attack.
“The strikes reflect Israel’s increased precision and ability to evade air defenses,” said a report published by the Institute for National Security Studies, an independent think tank affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
Since near-daily clashes on the Lebanon-Israel border began in early October, Hezbollah has increasingly used drones to evade Israeli air defenses and attack Israeli military bases along the border, as well as deep inside Israel.
Although Israel has intercepted hundreds of drones from Lebanon during the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli air defenses are not immune, Israeli security officials say. Drones are smaller and slower than missiles and rockets, making them harder to stop, especially when launched from near the border and requiring a shorter response time to intercept.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly due to Israeli security restrictions, said Israeli air defenses had to contend with more drones in the war than ever before, and that Israel had responded by striking missile launch sites.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah attacked an Israeli military base near the northern town of Nahariya, injuring six people. One of the deadliest Hezbollah drone attacks was in April, when a drone killed an Israeli soldier and wounded 13 others, including four civilians, in the northern Israeli Arab community of al-Aramsheh.
Hezbollah also deployed surveillance drones that filmed key locations in northern Israel, including Haifa, its suburbs and the Ramat David air base southeast of the coastal city.
Although Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has claimed that the terrorist group has produced its own drones, the group’s attacks have largely relied on Iranian-made Ababil and Shahed drones. Hezbollah has also used drones that fired Russian-made S5 cruise missiles on at least one occasion.
Hezbollah's growing capabilities come even as Israel kills some of its most important drone experts
The most high-profile one is Shukur, whom Israel says is responsible for Hezbollah's most advanced weapons, including missiles, long-range rockets and drones.
In 2013, Hassan Lakkis, a senior Hezbollah operative who was believed to have masterminded the drone attacks, was shot dead south of Beirut, with the group blaming Israel. Recent attacks in Syria, also believed to be carried out by Israel, have killed Iranian and Hezbollah drone experts, as well as members of the aerospace wing of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guards.
In its early days, Hezbollah used lower-tech tactics, such as gliders, 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 sent its first Mirsad reconnaissance drone over Israeli airspace in 2004.
After the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, Lakkis, Hezbollah's chief drone planner, took over the drone program.
Hezbollah has stepped up its use of drones for reconnaissance and attacks during its involvement in the Syrian conflict. In 2022, while Lebanon was indirectly negotiating a maritime border with Israel, the group flew three drones over one of Israel's largest gas plants in the Mediterranean Sea before they were shot down by Israel.
Hezbollah's drone program continues to receive significant assistance from Iran, and the drones are believed to be assembled by the terrorist group's experts in Lebanon.
“Since Iran cannot achieve aerobatic supremacy, it has turned to this type of aircraft,” said retired Lebanese general and military expert Naji Malaeb, adding that Russia has benefited from the purchase of hundreds of Iranian Shahed drones for use in its war with Ukraine.
In February, Ukrainian intelligence said Iranian and Hezbollah specialists were training Russian soldiers to operate Shahed-136 and Ababil-3 drones at an airbase in central Syria. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have military forces in Syria, where they fight alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
In a 2022 speech, Nasrallah boasted that “we in Lebanon have been producing drones for a long time.”
Lebanese terrorist groups continue to rely on Western parts, which could hinder 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 for explosive drones to be used in attacks on northern Israel.
The Spanish company involved in the drones, as well as others in Europe and around the world, bought a variety of goods, including electronic navigation components, propellers, gasoline engines, more than 200 electric motors, and materials for the fuselage, wings and other parts of the drones, investigators said.
Officials believe Hezbollah could build hundreds of drones with these components, but Iran remains Hezbollah's main supplier.
“The Israeli air force can launch missiles into areas in Lebanon, and now Hezbollah has drones and missiles that can hit any area in Israel,” said Iranian political analyst and professor of political science Emad Abchenas. He added that while the US has been supplying weapons to its closest ally Israel, Iran is doing the same by supplying weapons to groups such as Hezbollah.
