Cheap, Deadly and Hard To Spot: Hezbollah’s Drones Create Urgent Security Threat for Israel

One of Israel’s most urgent emerging security threats is not a sophisticated missile or advanced weapons system, but a small, cheap drone that can be bought online and easily assembled.

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Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said the drones are also effective because they allow operators to strike with “greater precision and accuracy.” He said that Hezbollah has deployed FPV drones similar to those used by Russia against Ukraine, adding that the group has adopted fiber‑optic control cables to mimic Russian tactics and evade electronic countermeasures.

“Even if they are smaller, the operator can focus in on sites, loiter, wait for an individual or a site to be a desirable target, and then hit them,” Cicurel said. “What we’re seeing in particular recently is adding fiber optic cables to them. That is another clear lesson that both Iran and Hezbollah have learned from Russia’s use of these drones against Ukraine.”

He said the cables help prevent electronic countermeasures from disrupting the drone’s communications, creating “a greater challenge” for Israeli forces trying to intercept them.

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“I think it goes back to the defensive adaptations in terms of needing to prepare for a variety of defenses against the kind of projectiles that our adversaries could be launching,” Cicurel said, noting that he believed “putting netting around air defenses” would “prevent drones from reaching them.” 

Read the original article in Jewish Insider.