The serious incident Wednesday afternoon in Hurfeish, in which reservist Refael Kauders was killed, proved to what extent Hezbollah and Iran have in the last eight months turned the Galilee not only into a land abandoned by its residents, but also into a research and development laboratory for weapons, to create accurate and deadly weapons in preparation for an extensive confrontation with Israel.
In Wednesday's incident, two relatively small but accurate explosive drones were launched in a coordinated manner, in a way that not only caused fatal damage to the rescue and medical teams that arrived within a few minutes, but also penetrated into Israeli territory and reached the Druze town located in a mountainous area without being detected by IDF detection systems. An alarm was not sounded and, from the point of view of the army, this is the worst case scenario: Not only that precision weapons from the air manage to penetrate Israeli territory without being intercepted, but also that no warning is triggered so that people on the ground find shelter.
Hurfeish is not on the front line either, but at a distance of about four kilometers from the border. This is not the first time that Hezbollah's explosives-laden drones have penetrated Israeli territory by flying slowly and at low altitude so that they reduce their signature and thus make it difficult to locate them, and also without a warning being activated. But this time the incident occurred many months after the IDF also improved technologically in response to these issues.
Wednesday night's target was chosen carefully and with great precision within the town. The UAVs were flying at a low altitude toward a reserve force camp from the 143rd Division in Hurfeish. Because of the low altitude, there was no identification and detection, and therefore no alarm was triggered. One UAV exploded and the other remained in the air, with the understanding that dozens more security and rescue personnel would gather at the scene.
IDF soldiers placed in such situations must maintain vigilance and try to always listen for the buzzing of drones or UAVs. In the past month, the IDF has distributed thousands of shields to the soldiers, and across the Galilee they have deployed concrete barriers for shielding and armed hideouts, but the soldiers do not always have enough time to run or hide, as documented in one of the videos circulated by Hezbollah in recent days, in which aerial weapons are seen irritating a group of soldiers in a temporary outpost in the field.
In hundreds of cases, Hezbollah preferred to choose weapons that manage to "bypass" the Air Force's active and soft defense systems; that is, the Iron Dome missile defense system and electronic warfare. Instead of rockets or RPGs, which have also been improved and used for more accurate barrages than before, Hezbollah presents a "small air force" that is constantly being upgraded and changed, with an array of experts and engineers from the Iranian military industry in the "back office" that investigates every launch, fall, misfire or damage on a daily basis, and not just arming the terrorist organization with more and more weapons.
So far, nearly 1,000 rockets and drones have been launched from Lebanon, before a 'real war' has even broke out in the north.
The response of the IDF is not only defensive in the face of these threats but also offensive in the form of hundreds of bombings of weapons centers, also deep in Lebanon, but Hezbollah has used since the outbreak of the war quantities of weapons that could testify to a huge arsenal, possibly beyond what Israeli intelligence knows.
In November, the IDF detected Hezbollah ammunition trucks arriving with supplies to positions in southern Lebanon, but as a policy from above did not attack them. The reason: During those 10 days there was a temporary cease-fire with Hamas as part of the hostage deal, and the cease-fire in the south was translated into a silent agreement with Hezbollah as well.
2 View gallery
A car's dash-cam captures the flight of an anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah toward the north
(Photo: Alex Douchman)
The IDF does not know exactly how many weapons were flown to Hezbollah operatives in this way, but the terrorist organization has already demonstrated that it does not need to launch the suicide drones, the explosive drones and even the rockets from the border area with Israel - these precise weapons have flight ranges of tens of kilometers in some cases. And it is difficult to identify them. In the Northern Command, out of about 400 terrorist operatives since October 7, and dozens of commanders in Hezbollah of various ranks have also been eliminated, and each time a drop in the military capacity and level of that regional force of Hezbollah was felt.
The IDF is preparing for more extreme scenarios that will probably result in a widespread conflict with Lebanon. For example, the use of such UAVs as swarms toward strategic targets in the north of the country and in the center: important military bases, headquarters, energy and electricity facilities and similar targets.
So far, nearly 1,000 rockets and drones have been launched from Lebanon, before a "real war" has even broke out in the north. Most of the launches are in daylight, because that way it is easier to aim and hit. The research and development of the Hezbollah-Iran axis also surprises the Israeli side, so much so that the accurate and long-range anti-tank missiles have already received a third generation version in the last month.