Hezbollah’s New Drone Threat

Excerpt

Alarm bells are ringing in Jerusalem as the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah appears to be shifting its tactics toward drone warfare despite the recently extended ceasefire. Hezbollah has been using one-way attack drones against Israel for years. Most of them are based on Iranian models. However, in recent weeks, Hezbollah has unveiled more small first-person-view (FPV) drones as well as drones attached to fiber-optic cables, similar to those used in battles in the Ukraine War.

In Ukraine, videos of drones hunting down soldiers on the frontline are commonplace. Ukrainian drone production grew exponentially after the Russian invasion in 2022, allowing the Ukrainian military to experiment with new tactics and doctrines.

Israel’s Ynet, a large daily newspaper and website, noted: “Hezbollah has increasingly relied on cheap, upgraded drones fitted with explosives and fiber-optic cables, a battlefield adaptation from Ukraine that helps them evade IDF electronic warfare and reach targets up to 10 kilometers [6 miles] away in southern Lebanon.”

The threat of Hezbollah’s (or Hamas’) small drones, such as quadcopters carrying munitions, flying into armored vehicles or into groups of infantry, has been known for years. However, the concern, among Hebrew media and commentators in Israel, is that the Israeli Defense Forces have not focused enough on these emerging trends. For instance, Shai Levy, the military reporter for the Israeli media site Mako, noted on April 28 that “the IDF is trying to portray Hezbollah’s explosive drones as a ‘new threat,’ only the reality on the ground and in the briefing rooms is different.” 

Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.