As Israel investigates how a Hezbollah drone evaded air defenses and killed four soldiers in Sunday’s attack on a military base, experts say the Iranian-backed Lebanese groups say they hope to overrun the Jewish state by showering it with cheap and difficult-to-obtain weapons. Detect suicide drones.
Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, told CNN that while drones are relatively cheap to manufacture and easy to operate, they are difficult to detect and intercept by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. He said it was more difficult. The main reason for that, she said, is that the missile is “small in size, very light and has a very low radar signal,” and Israeli radar systems can detect it just as they detect larger missiles. It doesn’t always detect them, he added.
Neither Hezbollah nor Israel said which drones were used in Sunday’s attack. Hezbollah said in a statement that it “used a variety of drones, some of which were used for the first time.”
But experts say they are likely Mirsad species, known in Iran as Ababil drones. The drone is a “low, slow-flying, unidirectional attack drone with an estimated 40-50 kg (88-110 lb) warhead,” said Benam, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. Ben Tabul said. CNN.
What makes tracking drones even more difficult is the fact that they don’t always have a fixed direction, Mizrahi said. “Drones can change direction during flight,” she said, adding, “We don’t understand where they end up going or what they end up hitting.”
Mizrahi said Hezbollah is adding drones to that list, knowing that Israel is pouring money into anti-missile systems, seeing them as Israel’s “weak spot.”
Ben Taleblu said last weekend’s drone strikes and barrage of rockets in northern Israel were “undaunted by Hezbollah, which reportedly lost half its arsenal. This suggests that the government continues to try to find holes in the net.
