Hezbollah’s drones: No more safe skies for Israel

The Aramco incident

The attack on the Aramco oil processing facilities in Abqaiq (eastern Saudi Arabia) in September 2019, was perhaps the first major incident of its kind in which sophisticated, precision drones were used in conjunction with a mix of ballistic and cruise missiles.

The attack, which was initially inaccurately attributed to Iran, but later claimed by Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, caused extensive damage to the oil facilities, shocking the global oil markets and hampering oil production in Saudi Arabia.

It was also an game-changing event on the regional military level. If the Yemeni rural highlanders that make up the core of Ansarallah had these advanced capabilities, so too would other groups within their regional alliance – Hezbollah included.

In fact, the Israeli army fears that Hezbollah is a key partner, technically and scientifically, in developing Yemeni drones that have succeeded in overcoming the American defense systems employed by Saudi Arabia, including the lauded Patriot missiles.

Israel considered the attack a frightening development in drone warfare, especially as practiced by its opponents. The incident also heightened fears that a similar attack might be repeated on sensitive Israeli facilities, such as the nuclear reactor in Dimona and oil facilities at sea.

Although Ansarallah claimed responsibility for the Aramco attack, US officials initially suggested that they were launched from Iraq. The weapons used were similar to those of Ansarallah forces in Yemen and some Iraqi military factions.

For several years now, the Ansarallah-aligned Yemeni army have succeeded in threatening all major Saudi cities and regions with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and long-range drones, which enabled them to target points in the kingdom’s strategic depth.

“Made in West Asia”

Tel Aviv has been watching these developments, especially the recent raid on Karish, with great apprehension. In Israel, there are those who believe that Hezbollah no longer needs to find creative ways to transfer Iranian military systems to Lebanon, after Nasrallah announced earlier that drones are now being manufactured inside the country.

Adding to Israel’s anxiety, two weeks after the Karish events, Iran announced a naval unit specialized in launching drones as a strategic weapon in the Iranian armed forces.

The Aramco attack only enhanced the regional reputation of these weapons and their ability to repeatedly infiltrate Israel’s airspace. This caught the attention of Russia, which reportedly plans to acquire Iranian drones and has requested training for Russian crews on how to operate them.

While Ukrainian forces have now tested the domestically-manufactured Turkish Bayraktar drones, unlike the successes achieved by Iranian drones, Bayraktar appears to have performed poorly against the extensive Russian air defense systems.

The reputation the Turkish drone earned from the battles of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagarno-Karabakh region were cut short in Ukraine, as the former’s success was largely due to the absence of an effective Armenian air defense network.

The aerial battles yet to come

During the July War of 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, no decisive impact was recorded with Hezbollah drones in its battles with the Israeli army. But sixteen years on, Hezbollah appears to be an army with an air force of more than 2,000 drones – according to Israeli estimates – with several launch sites, whether from runways or vertical take-off platforms, inside and outside Lebanon.

After Israel’s cultivated image of its ground forces was shaken, and its limited naval power was exposed in recent brief naval engagements with the Iranians, Tel Aviv is now set to lose the stable, controlled skies it once took for granted.

In the next conflict between the two foes, it is certain that Hezbollah’s arsenal of lethal drones – both kamikaze and those capable of aerial bombardment – combined with ballistic and precision missiles, will be able to threaten all strategic facilities across occupied Palestine.

But this scenario only assumes the participation of one of Tel Aviv’s adversaries: Hezbollah. What will the next war look like over Israeli skies if the fronts with Syria, Lebanon, Gaza – even Iraq, Iran, and Yemen – are activated in concert?