BEIRUT: Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group launched one of its deepest attacks on Israel in mid-May, using an explosive drone that scored a direct hit on one of Israel's most significant air force surveillance systems.
This and other successful drone strikes have given the Iran-backed militant group another lethal option for an expected retaliation against Israel for its airstrikes in Beirut last month that killed Hezbollah's top military commander Fouad Shukur.
“It's a threat that needs to be taken seriously,” Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said of Hezbollah's drone capabilities.
While Israel has built anti-aircraft systems, including Iron Dome and David's Sling 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 defensive capabilities” against drones, Hinz said.
Drones, or UAVS, are unmanned aircraft that can be maneuvered from afar. Drones can enter, monitor and attack enemy territory more discreetly than missiles and rockets.
Hezbollah proclaimed the success of its drone strike in May, which targeted an airship used as part of Israel's missile defense system at a base about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Lebanon's border.
The militants released footage showing what they said was their explosive Ababil drone flying towards the Sky Dew airship, and later released photographs of the downed aircraft.
Israel's military confirmed that Hezbollah received a direct hit.
“This attack reflects an improvement in the accuracy and ability to evade Israeli air defenses,” said a report released by the Institute for National Security Studies, an independent think tank affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
Since the near-daily exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border began in early October, Hezbollah has used drones more to bypass Israeli air defense systems and strike its military posts 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, therefore harder to stop. This is especially true when they are launched from near the border and require less reaction time to intercept.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly in line with Israeli security restrictions, said Israeli air defense systems have had to contend 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 northern city of Nahariya injured six people. One of the group's deadliest drone strikes 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 filming key facilities in Israel's north, including in Haifa, its suburbs and the Ramat David air base, southeast of the coastal city.
While Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has boasted that the militant group can now manufacture its own drones, its attacks have so far 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 increasing capabilities have come despite Israel killing some of its key drone experts.
The most notable was Shukur, who Israel said was responsible for most of 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. More recent strikes in Syria attributed to Israel killed Iranian and Hezbollah drone experts, including an official from the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard's aviation division.
In its early days, Hezbollah used lower-tech tactics, including paratroopers, 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 the first Mirsad reconnaissance drone over Israeli airspace in 2004.
After the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Lakkis, Hezbollah's drone mastermind, took charge of the drone program.
Hezbollah increased its use of drones for reconnaissance and strikes during its involvement in Syria's conflict. In 2022, when Lebanon began indirect negotiations to demarcate its maritime border 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 help from Iran, and the UAVs are believed to be assembled by experts from the militant group in Lebanon.
“Since Iran has not been able to achieve air supremacy, they have resorted to such types of aircraft,” said retired Lebanese general and military expert Naji Malaaeb, referring to drones. He added that Russia has benefited from buying hundreds of Iranian Shahed drones to use in its war against Ukraine.
In February, Ukrainian intelligence said Iranian and Hezbollah experts were training Russian troops to operate Shahed-136 and Ababil-3 drones at an airbase 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 in Lebanon, and for a long time, have started manufacturing drones.”
The Lebanese militant group apparently still relies on parts from Western countries, which could pose an obstacle to mass production.
In mid-July, three people were arrested in Spain and one in Germany on suspicion of belonging to 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, purchased items including electronic control components, propulsion propellers, gasoline engines, more than 200 electric motors and materials for the fuselage, wings and other drone parts, according to investigators.
Authorities believe Hezbollah may have built several hundred drones with these components. Yet Iran remains Hezbollah's main supplier.
“Israel's air force can fire missiles at different parts of Lebanon, and now Hezbollah has drones and missiles that can reach any area in Israel,” said Iranian political analyst and political science professor Emad Abshenass. He added that when the United States arms its closest ally, Israel, Iran does the same by arming groups like Hezbollah.
