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Hizbollah released detailed footage of a crucial Israeli military base filmed by one of its drones, highlighting the ease with which Iran-backed militias can penetrate Israel’s sophisticated air defences.
The video, released on Hizbollah’s Telegram channel, showed high-quality images of the Ramat David air base, about 50km south of the Lebanon border, including day- and night-time footage that the militants claimed was shot on Tuesday.
The footage, lasting almost nine minutes, included images of an Iron Dome launcher and close-ups of helicopters and fighter jets, including Apaches and Panthers, and heavy transport planes. It also claimed to be able to identify the office and name of the base commanders, although the Financial Times was not able to verify this.
The ease with which a Hizbollah drone appeared to loiter over an Israeli military base underlined the concerns about Israel’s air defences, which have traditionally focused on stopping rockets and missiles fired by its regional foes.
However, this advanced technology appears to be struggling against the cheaper drones that Iran has been known to provide to its militias in the region. Tehran supports a network of militant groups, including Hizbollah and Hamas, which it refers to as the “axis of resistance”.
The latest incident is the third time in recent months that a foreign unmanned aerial vehicle has spent significant time in northern Israeli air space.
A drone flown by Houthi rebels in Yemen last week travelled more than 12 hours through Egyptian airspace into Israel and exploded a short distance from the US Consulate in Tel Aviv, killing a civilian. The Israel Defense Forces said at the time that it had misidentified the Houthi drone as not posing a threat.
The IDF said in response to a query about the latest drone penetration: “The video released by Hizbollah was filmed by an unmanned aerial vehicle for photography purposes only. The activity of the base was not affected.”
It said its air force had taken down hundreds of Hizbollah “aerial array” targets, a reference to the unmanned vehicles that the militants and others including Iran have deployed in months of escalating conflict since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Israel’s famed multi-layered air defences, including its proprietary Iron Dome system, have allowed the country to maintain a relative sense of normalcy against thousands of rockets fired during nine months of war ignited by the Hamas cross-border raid that unleashed the war in Gaza.
But some smaller and lighter drones — Hizbollah called the one that shot the recent footage a “Hoopoe” — have been able to get around Israel’s air defences.
The accuracy of such drones seems unaffected by Israel’s jamming of the commercial GPS signal, which covers most of the country’s north and much of southern Lebanon. Israel extended this since last week’s Houthi attack, scrambling the GPS signal as far south as Tel Aviv.
One Israeli intelligence official told the FT that the country was allowing some surveillance drones to fly over its airspace to train radar operators and algorithms on their movement patterns, a process that can take many weeks.
Any drones considered lethal were shot down immediately, he said, asking for anonymity on condition of discussing the issue. But at least three Israeli soldiers have been killed and dozens injured in drone attacks in recent months, including a large attack on June 30 on a small military base in Beit Hillel in northern Israel.