The small drones cruise – undetected – over the skies of southern Lebanon and northern Israel, searching for targets.
Footage recorded by the explosive-laden devices shows them, one after another, finding and striking their targets: the weak spot on an Israeli Merkava tank. An Iron Dome air defense battery. A group of unsuspecting Israeli soldiers.
Fiber-optic, first-person view (FPV) drones have become a key weapon in the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s war against Israel in recent months – bypassing Israel’s sophisticated defense systems by duplicating an asymmetric warfare tactic that first emerged in the Russia-Ukraine war.
At least 12 Israeli soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah’s drones since the conflict reignited in March – one third of Israeli fatalities in Lebanon – and the military is scrambling to find ways to counter the threat.
Unlike the drones Hezbollah has previously deployed against Israel, the fiber-optic FPV drones – often no larger than a dinner plate – are extremely difficult to detect. The key to their lethality is a spool carrying miles of thin, fiber-optic cable that tethers the drones to their pilot, which means they do not emit any radio signals. That makes them both extremely difficult to detect and impossible to jam using electronic warfare methods.
“The drone threat is a challenge, but we will overcome it,” the Israeli military’s chief of staff Eyal Zamir said last month, adding that “operational and technological solutions” are being developed and implemented.
Race for countermeasures
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began by deploying hundreds of thousands of square meters of mesh netting – which can catch the drones before they reach their target – to protect troops in southern Lebanon and bases in northern Israel. It has also provided soldiers with shotguns and fragmenting rounds that can be used to take down approaching drones at close range.
But in order for those weapons to be effective against drones, soldiers first have to know they’re coming.
The IDF has yet to disclose how – or whether – it has improved its ability to identify and track these drones, but it has launched an appeal to private tech and defense companies to develop and deploy effective countermeasures.
Last month, many of those companies gathered alongside military officials to address what was clearly an urgent problem requiring novel solutions. The firms included those developing non-radio frequency sensors to identify fiber-optic drones and others working on ways to intercept and neutralize the drones before they can hit their target.
Among them was Shai Kurianski, the chief technology officer and co-founder of Airwayz, which says it has developed software that can manage low-altitude airspace and identify potential threats. It’s a technology that was most recently put to use by the Miami Police Department to help protect a FIFA World Cup stadium from drone threats.
Because Hezbollah’s fiber-optic drones are so hard to detect, experts say multiple types of sensors are often needed simultaneously to accurately identify incoming threats – among them, optical, acoustic, radar and laser-based systems.
Airwayz says its system fuses data from multiple sensors to rapidly identify friendly and hostile drones alike.
“Most of the warnings that the soldiers have – it’s when they hear the drone coming and they have about three, four seconds,” Kurianski said. “If you will give them 20 seconds of warning or 30 seconds of warning, the results will be completely different.”
‘It’s our children out there’
Like others in Israel’s high-tech industry, Kurianski is motivated by a sense of urgency, as Israeli soldiers appear to be largely defenseless against this new Hezbollah threat.
“It’s our children out there in Lebanon that are getting those FPV explosives and we will not wait with that,” Kurianski said.
But alongside that sense of urgency, many Israelis also feel a frustration that the Israeli military was insufficiently prepared for a threat that many saw coming.
Fiber-optic drones first emerged on the battlefield in Ukraine two years ago. Ukrainian officials have said they warned their Israeli counterparts about the danger and offered to help Israel prepare countermeasures for the day these cheap drones – which cost only $300 to $400 each – fell into the hands of Israel’s enemies.
“We don’t see much interest or appetite from the Israeli leadership in this area,” Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Korniychuk, told Israel’s Ynet news site in May. “I don’t want to speculate about the reasons for that. I often hear frustration about the fact that Israel is missing an opportunity to save more lives of its soldiers.”
It is a deadly reality that has become undeniable as Hezbollah has posted dozens of videos showing its drones infiltrating Israeli bases and forward operating positions, and targeting Israeli troops in the field.
Current and former Israeli military officials have also acknowledged that Israel was underprepared for the drone threat.
Brig. Gen. Yaron Rosen (Res.), the former chief of the IDF’s Cyber Staff, said the military was “completely overwhelmed” by the multitude of threats and arenas it has been engaged in.
“Everyone was talking about it like, ‘Guys it’s coming,’ but no one really knew and other things were occupying our minds, especially Iran,” said Rosen, who is also the executive chairman of Airwayz.
He said the IDF is now “doing everything it can” to close the gap and hopes to see a “sharp decline” in the effectiveness of Hezbollah’s drones “in the next few months.”
