On Saturday, October 19, Hezbollah launched a drone attack on Israel. One of the drones targeted the home of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the coastal community of Caesarea. This attack comes in the wake of a deadly drone attack a week ago that killed four Golani soldiers and wounded sixty at an IDF base near Binyamina.
The attacks near Binyamina and targeting Caesarea come after another deadly drone attack in the Golan carried out by Iraqi militias. The drones appear to have become more effective, deadly, and precise. There may be various reasons for this.
One theory, put out by Israel’s Ynet, is that “Hezbollah's latest tactic involves combining heavy rocket barrages with drone strikes to overwhelm Israeli air defenses, aiming to cause confusion and increase damage from interception debris, with casualties from drones steadily rising.”
That might not be the only reason. Israel’s enemies possess a plethora of drones of varying types. These include the drones that have been filmed and photographed in recent attacks. The attack on October 19 was filmed, showing a relatively normal type of attack drone with a wing, fuselage, and V-shaped tail. The drone that the Houthis used to attack Tel Aviv in July, which killed one person, appeared to be similar. Also, an attack on Yom Kippur that targeted Herziliya appeared to have a similar drone.
Other types of kamikaze drones are in the arsenal of Hezbollah, the Houthis, and militias in Iraq. These include the delta-shaped Shahed 136, which is a popular export model for the Iranians. The same drone is used by the Russians against Ukraine by the thousands. Hezbollah itself is estimated to have up to 2,000 drones. It has used hundreds of these, but it still possesses a large number and is likely importing more or making them.
Hezbollah’s drone attacks are becoming more sophisticated and calibrated. In the first year of the war, it mostly focused on targets near the border. It tried to target Iron Dome batteries and also struck at IDF bases. It used drones against a surveillance balloon near the Golani junction, as well as hitting soldiers in a field near Hurfeish and targeting soldiers in the community of Arab al-Aramshe.
Hezbollah honed its capabilities in these shorter-range attacks. In the past, before the October 7 war, Hezbollah had also targeted an Israeli gas platform off the coast in 2022.
Hezbollah drones, as well as those used by the Houthis and Iraqi militias, all now have a long range. This can exceed 2,000km in some cases. Hezbollah doesn’t need such a long-range, whereas the Houthis and Iraqis do.
Hezbollah drones, though, may need to be launched from more secretive sites in northern Lebanon as Hezbollah faces IDF strikes in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and south of the Litani. However, the types of drones being used are not that large, usually several meters long with a wingspan of several meters.
A Shahed 101 drone has been named on social media amid speculation of which drone-type images show one used on October 19. According to the Alma Research and Education Center, the Shahed 101 drone has a warhead of 8kg and a range of 900km. It flies at 120km/hr.
“Starting in July 2024, Hezbollah began launching Shahed 101 type suicide UAVs with electric motors toward Israel. Hezbollah has been using these UAVs in recent months due to the advantages they offer, as we have previously reported,” the Alma Center notes.
The apparent success that Hezbollah is having with drone attacks recently comes after a year in which the group continued to use these new systems. It has had repeated success throughout the year. This is because drones are easy to maneuver and not always easy to detect or track. Hezbollah will continue to use these systems to try to carry out what it sees as “quality” strikes, increasingly escalating against Israel.