BEIRUT: Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah launched its deepest attack on Israel in mid-May, using explosive drones to strike Israel's most important air force surveillance system.
This and other successful drone strikes have given the Iranian-backed militant group another deadly option in an expected retaliation against Israel for an airstrike in Beirut last month that killed top Hezbollah military commander Fouad Shukur.
“This is a threat that must be taken seriously,” Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said of Hezbollah's drone capabilities.
While Israel has built air defense systems including Iron Dome and David's Sling to protect against Hezbollah's rocket and missile weapons, there has been less attention paid to the drone threat.
“And as a result there has been less effort to build defensive capabilities against drones”, Hinz said.
Drones, or UAVS, are unmanned aircraft that can be operated remotely. Drones can penetrate, monitor and attack enemy territory better than missiles and rockets.
Hezbollah announced the success of its May drone attack, which targeted a blimp used as part of Israel's missile defense system at a base 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Lebanese border.
The terrorists released footage they said showed their explosive Abil drone flying towards the Sky Dew blimp, and later released photos of the downed plane.
Israel's military confirmed a direct hit by Hezbollah.
“This attack reflects improvements in the accuracy and ability to evade Israeli air defenses,” said the report released by the Institute for National Security Studies, an independent think tank affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
Since near-daily firing exchanges along the Lebanon-Israel border began in early October, Hezbollah has used drones to bypass Israeli air defense systems and attack its military posts along the border and deep inside Israel.
Israel has intercepted hundreds of drones from Lebanon during the Israel-Hamas war, but its air defense system is not hermetic, an Israeli security official said. Drones are smaller and slower than missiles and rockets, so they are harder to intercept. This is especially true when they start close to the border and require a short reaction time to interrupt.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly to comply with Israeli security restrictions, said Israeli air defense systems had to deal with more drones than ever before during this war and that Israel responded by attacking launch points.
On Tuesday, six people were injured in a Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli army base near the northern city of Nahariya. One of the group's bloodiest drone attacks was in April, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding 13 others and four civilians in the northern Israeli community of Arab al-Aramseh.
Hezbollah also sent surveillance drones to Israel's north to film important facilities, including Haifa, its suburbs and the Ramat David airbase southeast of the coastal city.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has boasted that the militant group can now build its own drones, but so far its attacks have relied mainly on Iranian-made Ababil and Shahed drones. It has also used a drone, at least once, that fires Russian-made S5 guided missiles.
Hezbollah's growing capabilities come even as Israel kills some of its most important drone experts.
The most high-profile was Shukur, who Israel said was responsible for Hezbollah's most advanced weapons, including missiles, long-range rockets and drones.
In 2013, a senior Hezbollah operative, Hassan Lakkis, believed to be one of its drone masterminds, was shot dead south of Beirut. The group blamed Israel. Recent strikes in Syria attributed to Israel have killed Iranian and Hezbollah drone experts, including an officer from the aerospace division of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
In its early days, Hezbollah used low-tech tactics, including paragliders, to attack behind enemy lines.
After Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 after 18 years of occupation, Hezbollah began using Iranian-made drones and in 2004 sent the first reconnaissance Mirsad drone into Israeli airspace.
After the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, Hezbollah drone mastermind Lakkis took over the drone program.
Hezbollah has increased its use of drones and attacks during its involvement in the Syrian conflict. In 2022, as Lebanon engaged in indirect negotiations to demarcate its maritime border with Israel, the group sent three drones into one of Israel's largest gas facilities in the Mediterranean Sea before Israel shot it down.
Hezbollah's drone program still receives substantial support from Iran, and the UAVs are believed to be assembled by the militant group's experts in Lebanon.
“Iran has resorted to these types of aircraft because it has not been able to achieve air supremacy,” Naji Malaeb, a retired Lebanese general and military expert, said of the drones. He said that Russia benefited by buying hundreds of Iranian Shahed drones to use in the war against Ukraine.
In February, Ukrainian intelligence services said Iranian and Hezbollah experts were training Russian forces to operate Shahad-136 and Ababil-3 drones at airfields in central Syria. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have a military presence in Syria, where they are fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces.
In a 2022 speech, Nasrallah boasted that “we started producing drones in Lebanon and for a long time.”
The Lebanese militant group is still apparently dependent on parts from Western countries, which could hamper mass production.
In mid-July, three people were arrested in Spain and one in Germany on suspicion of belonging to a network that supplied parts to Hezbollah to build explosive drones for use in attacks in northern Israel.
According to investigators, Spanish companies, like 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 fuselages, wings and other drone parts.
Officials believe Hezbollah may have built hundreds of drones with these components. Still, 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 area of Israel,” said Imad Absenas, an Iranian political analyst and professor of political science. He added that just as the US arms Israel, its closest ally, Iran is doing the same by arming groups like Hezbollah.
