By opening an investigation into the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has accepted that there is, in fact, a Palestinian state. Granting such recognition to “Palestine,” writes Eugene Kontorovich, flies in the face of international law and the ICC’s own founding documents:

[T]he prosecutor did not actually determine that Palestine qualifies as a “state” under the well-established legal definitions of the term. Rather, she said that the UN General Assembly’s vote in 2012 to call Palestine a “non-member state” is dispositive of the question. In short, she substituted the determination of the General Assembly for her own. The General Assembly is not a judicial body, but a political one. Its determinations are political, not legal. It also has no power under the UN Charter to create or recognize states. . . .

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the prosecutor has deferred to judgments of the General Assembly in lieu of legal analysis. Even more unhappily, the other recent occasion also involved Israel, and the prosecutor grabbed onto General Assembly resolutions to find an “occupation” where it could not be said to exist under normative international law, including International Court of Justice precedents. An Office of the Prosecutor that merely echoes the General Assembly is in danger of becoming simply another UN Human Rights Council.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.