IDF claims Hezbollah drone struck Israel's giant missile-detecting airship, report says
Hezbollah managed to hit a sensitive military facility in the Lower Galilee with an explosive drone on Wednesday evening, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed Thursday, as fighter jets responded by striking targets belonging to the terror group in northeastern Lebanon.
In the attack on Wednesday, Hezbollah claimed to have launched explosive-laden drones at an Israeli Air Force base from which a giant missile-detecting blimp, known as Sky Dew, is operated.
The base is located near Golani Junction, some 35 kilometers (21 miles) from the Lebanon border.
The IDF on Thursday morning confirmed that one of Hezbollah’s drones hit a sensitive military facility in the area of Golani Junction.
Two drones were launched in the attack, with one being downed by air defenses, according to the military.
The second explosive drone struck the facility, and the damage was being assessed by the military.
It marked Hezbollah’s deepest strike in Israel amid the war.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meets IAF soldiers at a base in northern Israel housing a giant missile-detecting balloon, February 20, 2024. (Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry)
Hezbollah has launched thousands of drones, missiles, and rockets at northern Israel in the past seven months, though the attacks have largely been limited to the border area. Until Wednesday, the terror group had fired projectiles at Israeli targets up to around 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the frontier.
The Sky Dew aerostat is deployed at high altitudes to detect incoming long-range missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. It was first used some two years ago, but the system is not yet operational and has seen significant setbacks with its deployment.
In response to the attack, the Israeli Air Force carried out strikes overnight in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold some 100 kilometers from the border.
The strike targeted a Hezbollah weapons manufacturing plant, used to build guided munitions and drones, according to military assessments.
Lebanese media described the Israeli strike as the largest in the Baalbek region amid the war.
Hezbollah said the drone attack was a response to recent Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon that killed members of the terror group. On Tuesday night, a top field commander, Hussein Ibrahim Makki, was killed in an IDF drone strike.
Makki, according to Israeli military sources, was the intelligence officer of Hezbollah’s Southern Front unit, a relatively senior role in the terror group.
Following the strike, Hezbollah carried out several major attacks on northern Israel, including the drone attack.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
So far, the skirmishes on the border have resulted in ten civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 14 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 298 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 60 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and at least 60 civilians have been killed.
Hezbollah carried out its deepest strike in Israel by targeting the Israeli Air Force's Sky Dew base near Golani Junction, about 35 kilometres from the Lebanon border. The Sky Dew, Israel’s largest spy balloon, acts as a detection radar for unmanned aircraft and missiles. Two explosive-laden Hezbollah drones were launched in the attack, with one being downed by air defenses and the other successfully hitting the facility. The extent of the damage to the balloon is still being assessed by the Israeli military. This attack is seen as a retaliation for recent Israeli strikes on southern Lebanese villages and civilian homes. Hezbollah has vowed to continue its operations as long as Israel's military campaign in Gaza persists.
Summary
According to reports, Hezbollah launched a drone attack on Israel's Sky Dew airship, a large surveillance balloon equipped with advanced radar to detect drones and missiles. The attack, which took place near Tiberias about 35km from the Lebanon border, is Hezbollah's deepest strike into Israel so far.
Key points:
- Two Hezbollah drones were launched, with one shot down and the other successfully hitting the Sky Dew facility.
- The $230 million Sky Dew aerostat was damaged, potentially compromising Israel's aerial surveillance capabilities in the north.
- Hezbollah claimed responsibility, stating it was retaliation for recent Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon that killed a senior Hezbollah commander and civilians.
- Israel responded with airstrikes on a Hezbollah weapons manufacturing plant in northeastern Lebanon.
- Analysts suggest Hezbollah is trying to "blind" Israel's northern defenses, possibly ahead of a more serious attack.
- The incident highlights the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which has displaced thousands on both sides of the border since October 2023.
Hezbollah 'blinds' Israeli defences with drone strike on Sky Dew airship
Israel has suffered a substantial setback to its surveillance capabilities after a Hezbollah drone struck a $230 million advanced radar detection airship in its deepest attack into the country to date.
Israel's military has confirmed that the Sky Dew blimp, which can spot targets up to 250km away, had been damaged in an attack by a kamikaze drone. Local reports suggest the blimp was shot down.
Intelligence analysts told The National that Hezbollah is seeking to make northern Israel’s detection systems “go blind” potentially ahead of a more serious assault.
With Hezbollah strikes increasing in northern Israel, a local mayor has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “ignoring reality” over the growing threat.
Sky Dew detection
Israel has been developing the Sky Dew project since 2022, giving its forces an advanced observation system for drones and cruise missiles striking from Iran and Syria, as well as Lebanon, by picking up smaller targets that are harder to detect in northern Israel's valleys.
It then gives precision targeting information to air defence weapons, including the Iron Dome system.
The balloon also has the key advantage of remaining airborne at low cost, without requiring fuel or crew replacement, whereas surveillance aircraft cost $40,000 an hour to operate.
But that capability has either been severely damaged or destroyed after Hezbollah launched a one-way attack drone that flew 33km undetected into Israeli airspace and struck the balloon close to the town of Tiberias.
The aircraft was probably an Iran-designed Ababil carrying a 40kg warhead travelling up to 370kph with a range of 120km.
Blinding defences
“What it is clear is that Hezbollah are trying to make the northern Israel detection defences go blind,” said Sarit Zehavi, a former lieutenant colonel in Israeli military intelligence.
Speaking from northern Israel, she had spent most of pre-dawn Friday awake after another drone strike, although air-raid sirens indicated this one had been detected.
Ms Zehavi, who is also a mother and runs Alma, an open-source intelligence centre, said she was discussing with neighbours “whether to stay at home during this Saturday or to go away” with the drone attacks increasingly frequent over the last two months.
Tal Hagin, a leading open-source intelligence analyst based in Tel Aviv, said there was “clearly something lacking in Israel's defence system at the moment” because a drone had been able to enter “from within Lebanese territory all the way into Israel, over 30km away”.
“Acting as a proxy for Iran, Hezbollah is essentially trying to take out the eyes of Israel’s northern defence capabilities,” he said.
He added that the precision of recent attacks suggested that just like the Israelis, Hezbollah had a “target bank” of sites it can hit in retaliatory strikes.
The Sky Dew attack came shortly after Israel confirmed it had killed a senior Hezbollah field commander on Wednesday.
No impact
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesman, confirmed that a Hezbollah drone had scored a direct hit on Sky Dew but added there were no casualties and that it “had no impact to the IDF's aerial situational awareness capability in the area”.
Hezbollah confirmed in a statement that “a number of attack drones” had struck an Israeli airbase near Tiberias. “It accurately hit its designated targets and achieved what it wanted from this limited operation,” a spokesman said.
Hezbollah show of power
Hezbollah also used its air-to-surface missiles for the first time on Thursday, attacking a military target near the northern Israeli town of Metulla.
It was the first recorded instance of the use of the Russian S-5 missiles and, combined with the attack on the Sky Dew blimp, a reminder that the Iran-allied paramilitary has kept its full capability up its sleeve.
In an April 2024 speech Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that his group had not yet begun using the bulk of its troops and arsenal.
“We haven’t even mandated our forces to remain stationed at the front,” he said. “They work on a rotation: for a period of time, then go rest at home, then a replacement comes and so on. And despite this, we have accomplished many losses in northern Israel.”
Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified substantially in the past week. Friday saw the killing of three people in southern Lebanon – a Hezbollah fighter and two civilians, one of whom was a 13-year-old child – in a wave of Israeli strikes near the southern city of Sidon, around 30km from the border.
The two civilians were killed in a strike on a stone factory while the third person, who Hezbollah acknowledged was a member in a statement announcing his death, was targeted in his vehicle.
A statement by the Israeli military said the air force had “struck terrorist infrastructure” where Hezbollah was operating.
In Israel on Thursday, there were 133 threat sirens, warning of missile and drone attacks and adding to the sense of danger for residents.
Since October 7, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the Lebanon-Israel border. There are no signs residents will be able to return any time soon, more than seven months into the conflict.
Many Israeli residents have signalled their unwillingness to return to the north while Hezbollah remains on the border. Their departure could now become permanent said Moshe Davidovitch, head of the regional council, in a letter to Mr Netanyahu.
“Given the manner in which this national issue is being handled, the northern conflict zone will be abandoned – not only the towns that have been evacuated but the entire conflict area in which our people believe things are business as usual while inexplicably ignoring reality,” he wrote on Sunday.
Updated: May 17, 2024, 8:16 AM
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