“Israel’s” Drone Dilemma: The Struggle to Detect and Intercept

By Staff

“Israel’s” Walla! website recently published a report on Tel Aviv’s growing "drone dilemma". The report notes that regional resistance groups managed to identify one of the “Israeli” military’s key weaknesses – its ability to deal with the threat of drones. This explains the frequent launches from Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.

According to the website, the last year saw drones hitting precise targets, including the dining hall at the Golani Brigade training base, the home of “Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a building in “Nahariya”, and enemy army sites. At the end of last week alone, 10 drones were launched towards the occupied territories, and one of them was intercepted in Lebanese territory.

Walla! cites the “Israeli” military’s data collected since the beginning of the war, which shows that more than 1,200 drones were launched from Lebanon, and Hezbollah still has hundreds more.

According to the website, the challenge lies in identifying and tracking these small aircraft and the difficulty of intercepting drones in the occupied territories because the combat helicopter or fighter jet that follows them cannot fire from any angle for fear of harming “Israelis,” or hitting infrastructure and other objects.

The “Israeli” Defense Ministry is trying to address the shortcomings of the air force in shooting down drones by placing radars and sensors to detect and track the projectiles quickly and accurately, while at the same time, combat helicopters and fighter jets are on alert to carry out air pursuits.

The website explained that the cost of a fighter jet sortie is estimated at about a quarter of a million shekels, not including the ammunition used to shoot down the drones.

“Over the past weekend, entire communities in the north remained in shelters for more than half an hour until the army intercepted a drone, but the dilemma it faces is that in return for warning and alerting, it tries not to keep the settlers in the shelters for a long time,” the website added.

“Israeli” military officials told Walla that “the ‘Israeli’ Air Force has doubled its security and warning measures regarding drones, and every time a drone penetrates, the order ‘fix the cannon’ is activated, which makes the warning greater and causes half of the ‘Israel’ to go into shelters.”=

Sources in the “Israeli” military industries said that the occupation army discovered its weaknesses late, and therefore, the possibility of manufacturing an effective tool to confront drones will not be available for another year, while sources in the occupation army confirm that the ground operation in southern Lebanon will not stop the launching of drones.