BEIRUT: The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah launched its deepest attack into Israel in mid-May, using an explosive-laden drone to directly hit one of Israel's most important air force surveillance systems.
This and other successful drone strikes give the Iran-backed militant group another lethal option to counter Israel's expected retaliation for the airstrike that killed Fouad Shukur, a senior Hezbollah military commander, in Beirut last month.
Fabian Hintz, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Hezbollah's drone capabilities were “a threat that must be taken seriously.”
Israel has built up air defense systems such as the Iron Dome and David's Sling to counter Hezbollah's arsenal of rockets and missiles, but has paid relatively little attention to the drone threat.
“As a result, there has been less effort to build up defense capabilities against drones,” Hinz said.
Drones or UAVS are unmanned aircraft that can operate from a distance. Drones can enter enemy territory, monitor, and attack more discreetly than missiles and rockets.
Hezbollah declared a drone strike in May successful, targeting an airship used as part of an Israeli missile defense system at a base about 35 km (22 miles) from the Lebanese border.
The militants released footage showing an explosive drone called Ababil flying towards the Skydew airship, and later released photos of the crashed aircraft.
The Israeli military confirmed that Hezbollah had carried out the direct strike.
“This attack demonstrates improvements in accuracy and the ability to evade Israeli air defenses,” said a report by the Institute for National Security Studies, an independent think tank affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
Since the near-daily gunfights along the Lebanese-Israeli border in early October, Hezbollah has used drones more frequently to bypass Israeli air defenses and strike military bases along the border and deep into Israel.
During the Israel-Hamas war, Israel intercepted hundreds of drones in Lebanon, but Israeli air defense systems are not sealed, Israeli security officials said. Drones are smaller and slower than missiles and rockets, making them harder to stop, especially when they are launched near the border and require shorter reaction times to intercept.
The official, who could not speak publicly due to Israeli security restrictions, said Israel's air defenses had to deal with more drones than ever before in this war, and Israel responded by attacking their launch sites.
On Tuesday, a Hezbollah drone strike wounded six Israeli soldiers near the northern city of Nahariya. One of the group’s bloodiest drone strikes came in April, when an Israeli soldier was killed and 13 people and four civilians were wounded in the northern Israeli community of Arab al-Ahramshe.
Hezbollah also sent surveillance drones to photograph key sites in northern Israel, including the Haifa suburbs and Ramat David air base 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 primarily on Iranian-made Ababil and Shahed drones. It has also used drones that fire Russian-made S5 guided missiles at least once.
Despite Israel killing some of its most important drone experts, Hezbollah's capabilities have strengthened.
The most prominent figure was Shukur, who Israel says was in charge of much of Hezbollah's most advanced weaponry, including missiles, long-range rockets and drones.
In 2013, Hassan Raqis, a senior Hezbollah operative believed to be the inventor of drones, was shot dead south of Beirut. The group blamed Israel. Recent airstrikes in Syria attributed to Israel have killed Iranian and Hezbollah drone experts, including members of 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, sending its first reconnaissance drone, the Mirsad, into Israeli airspace in 2004.
After the 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah war in 2006, Hezbollah drone guru Raqis took over the drone program.
Hezbollah has increased its use of drones for reconnaissance and attacks during its involvement in the Syrian conflict. In 2022, as Lebanon was involved in indirect negotiations to set a maritime border with Israel, the group sent three drones to one of Israel’s largest gas facilities in the Mediterranean before Israel shot them down.
Hezbollah's drone program still receives significant support from Iran, and the drones are believed to have been assembled by the militant group's experts in Lebanon.
“Iran has become dependent on these types of aircraft because they don’t have air superiority,” said Naji Malaeb, a retired Lebanese general and military expert, referring to the drones. He added that Russia has benefited from buying hundreds of Iranian Shahed drones for use in the war against Ukraine.
In February, Ukrainian intelligence said Iranian and Hezbollah experts were training Russian forces to operate Shahed-136 and Ababil-3 drones from air bases in central Syria. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have military forces in Syria, fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
In a 2022 speech, Nasrallah boasted that “Lebanon has been producing drones for a long time.”
Lebanese militants appear to still rely on Western-made components, which could hinder mass production.
In mid-July, three people were arrested in Spain and one in Germany, accused of being part of a network that supplied Hezbollah with components needed to build explosive drones used in attacks in northern Israel.
According to investigators, like other companies in Europe and around the world, the Spanish companies involved purchased items such as electromagnetic induction components, propulsion propellers, gasoline engines, more than 200 electric motors, and materials needed to build fuselages, wings and other drone components.
Authorities believe Hezbollah may have built hundreds of drones with these components, but Iran remains Hezbollah's main supplier.
“The Israeli Air Force can fire missiles at various parts of Lebanon, and Hezbollah now has drones and missiles that can reach all parts of Israel,” said Emad Abshenas, an Iranian political analyst and professor of political science. He added that while the United States supplies weapons to its closest ally, Israel, Iran is doing the same by supplying weapons to groups like Hezbollah.
