Beirut: The Lebanese Hezbollah militant group carried out one of its most profound attacks in mid-May, using an explosive drone that hit one of the most important surveillance systems of the Israeli Air Force.
The strike and other successful drone strikes have given the Iran-backed militia another deadly option for expected retaliation against Israel for the regime's airstrike in Beirut last month that killed top Hezbollah military commander Fouad Shakur.
“This is a threat that must be taken seriously,” said Fabian Heinz, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, about Hezbollah's drone capabilities.
While Israel has built air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and David's Belt, to protect against Hezbollah's rocket and missile arsenal, there has been less focus on the drone threat.
“And as a result there has been less effort to build defense capabilities against drones,” Hines said.
Drones or UAVs are unmanned aircraft that can be flown remotely. Drones can enter, monitor and attack enemy territory more discreetly than missiles and rockets.
Hezbollah claimed success in its May drone strike, which targeted a helicopter used as part of Israel's missile defense system at a base about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Lebanese border.
The militants released footage of what they said was their exploding Ababil drone flying into a dewy sky, and later released photos of the downed aircraft.
The IDF confirmed that Hezbollah scored a direct hit.
In a report published by the Institute for National Security Studies, an independent think tank affiliated with Tel Aviv University, it is stated: This attack shows an improvement in the accuracy and ability to evade Israeli air defenses.
Since the near-daily exchange of fire along the Lebanese-Israeli border began in early October, Hezbollah has increasingly used drones to bypass Israeli air defense systems and attack its 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, its 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 thrown from close to the border and require a shorter reaction time to intercept.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly due to Israeli security restrictions, said that Israel's air defense systems have been forced to deal with more drones during this war than ever before, and Israel responded by attacking launch sites.
On Tuesday, a Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli army base near the city of Nahariya in the north of the country injured 6 people. One of the group's deadliest drone attacks was in April, in which an Israeli soldier was killed and 13 others, plus four civilians, were wounded in the Arab al-Aramsha region in northern Israel.
Hezbollah also sent surveillance drones that filmed critical installations in northern Israel, including in Haifa, its suburbs, and the Ramat David air base, southeast of the coastal city.
While Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasts that the militant group can now build its own drones, its attacks so far have relied mostly on Iranian-made Ababil drones. It has also at least once used a drone to fire Russian-made S5 guided missiles.
Despite killing some of Israel's most important drone experts, Hezbollah's capabilities have increased.
The most prominent of these was Shokur, who Israel said was responsible for most of Hezbollah's most advanced weaponry, including missiles, long-range rockets and drones.
In 2013, one of Hezbollah's top operatives, Hassan Lakis, who was considered to be one of the masterminds behind its drones, was shot dead in southern Beirut. This group blamed Israel. Recent attacks in Syria attributed to Israel killed Iranian and Hezbollah drone experts, including an official from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' aerospace division.
In its early days, Hezbollah used lower-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 sent the first Mirsad reconnaissance drone over Israeli airspace in 2004.
After the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Lakis, the mastermind behind Hezbollah's drones, took over the drone program.
Hezbollah increased its use of drones in reconnaissance and strikes during the Syrian conflict. In 2022, when Lebanon was engaged in indirect negotiations to demarcate its maritime borders with Israel, the group sent three drones over one of Israel's largest gas facilities in the Mediterranean before they were shot down by Israel.
Hezbollah's drone program still receives significant aid from Iran, and the drones are believed to be assembled by the militant group's experts in Lebanon.
Referring to drones, Naji Malaeb, a retired general and military expert in Lebanon, said: Since Iran has not been able to achieve air superiority, it has resorted to such planes. He added: Russia has benefited from the purchase of hundreds of Iranian witness drones to use in its war against Ukraine.
In February, Ukraine's intelligence service announced that Iranian and Hezbollah experts were training Russian forces to use Shahid-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 speech in 2022, Nasrallah boasted that “in Lebanon, we started producing drones a long time ago.”
Apparently, the Lebanese militia still relies 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 in northern Israel.
The Spanish companies, like others in Europe and around the world, bought items including electronic guidance components, propellers, gasoline engines, more than 200 electric motors and materials for the drone's fuselage, wings and other parts, according to the researchers.
Officials believe Hezbollah may have built hundreds of drones with these components. However, Iran remains Hezbollah's main supplier.
Emad Abshanas, an Iranian political analyst and professor of political science, said: “The Israeli Air Force can fire missiles at different areas of Lebanon, and now Hezbollah has drones and missiles that can reach any area in Israel.” He added: As Israel's closest ally, Iran also does the same by arming groups like Hezbollah.
