The deadly attack by Hezbollah against an army base deep inside Israeli territory presents a major headache for Israel as it continues to struggle to defuse the threat from the Iran-backed militant group, despite launching a major bombardment campaign and a ground operation against it.
Launched from southern Lebanon, a drone was able to penetrate Israeli air defenses undetected and hit the Golani Brigade’s base some 40 miles into Israel from the border. It struck on Sunday just after 7pm – at dinner time – and while the military has not released any details about the impact site, photos from the scene make it clear the drone hit the base’s dining hall.
Both the timing and the location of the strike suggest that Hezbollah had gathered enough intelligence and possesses the capabilities to maximize the number of casualties. The Golani Brigade is regarded as an elite Israeli infantry unit and has been deployed to southern Lebanon as part of Israel’s ground operation there.
Four soldiers were killed, and more than 60 others were injured, eight of them seriously, bringing the total number of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers killed since the start of the ground operation two weeks ago to at least 18.
Sunday’s assault is also the single bloodiest attack on IDF troops inside Israel since the beginning of the war last October.
Daniel Sobelman, an international security expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that it shows Hezbollah is still able to strike.
“It is a clear indication that Hezbollah is regaining its strategic balance following the recent devastating blows to its leadership and command and control apparatuses,” he told CNN, referring to the killing of Hezbollah’s long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top officials.
Israel’s air defense systems are impressive, intercepting and destroying most projectiles fired towards the country. But they have been designed and developed primarily to counter rockets and missiles, not drones that can be launched from anywhere, fly low and slow, and change directions quickly.
And while the IDF has not said what type of aircraft was used in Sunday’s attack, experts told CNN it was most likely a Mirsad drone, a type known in Iran as Ababil drones.
Orna Mizrahi, a senior research fellow at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, told CNN that such unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are harder to detect because they “are small in size, very light, with very low radar signature.”
Iran and its allies are seeking to overwhelm Israel’s defense systems, Mizrahi said, adding drones to the equation after identifying them as “a weakness” for Israel.
“Every time we find a solution for something, they find another way to attack,” she said.
Residents in Israel are well trained when it comes to evading dangers from above. Most people head to the shelters – omnipresent in much of the country – or duck down in a ditch whenever they hear the sirens indicating an imminent aerial threat.
But the drone sent by Hezbollah at the weekend managed to slip through without triggering Israel’s alert systems. The soldiers in the dining hall were attacked without any warning.
And it was not the first time this has happened.
In June, Hezbollah released a nine-minute video filmed by a drone showing civilian and military locations in and around one of Israel’s largest cities, Haifa. That UAV also appeared to have gone undetected by the IDF.
In response to the video, IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi said at the time that the Israeli military was “preparing and coming up with solutions to deal with these and other capabilities.”
Then in July, a drone launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen killed one man and injured at least 10 others in Tel Aviv. No sirens were activated during that attack. The IDF said two drones were fired and that while one was intercepted, the other one was not – due to what it said was a human error.
