A tomb on the Mount of Olives has long been venerated by Jews as the resting place of the biblical prophetess Hulda. Christians and Muslims, however, worship there for their own reasons, as Miriam Feinberg Vamosh writes (free registration required):

King Josiah, the Israelite leader from 641 to 609 BCE, aspired to purge the land of idol worship, after his own grandfather Manasseh had permitted idolatrous worship in the Temple. Josiah ordered the Temple renovated for proper worship of the one God, during which a scroll—ancient even then—with Deuteronomic texts was found.

The star prophet of the time, Jeremiah, was apparently out of town. But Hulda, wife of Shallum, one of the king’s courtiers (and, the sages suggest, Jeremiah’s cousin), was available for interpretation. She warned Josiah that, indeed, the punishments [for idolatry] listed by the book would apply, though only after Josiah’s time, because he was righteous. Her warning led the Jews to renew their covenant with Yahweh.

Hulda’s tomb may have been located within Jerusalem at one point and later removed. . . . [B]y the Middle Ages, Jewish pilgrims write that they had visited Hulda’s tomb at the top of Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives. . . . But to Christians, this very same tomb is occupied by St. Pelagia, a 5th-century actress and singer from Antioch known for her beauty who, at the behest of her bishop, St. Nonnus, left her old life behind, disguised herself as a man, and came to Jerusalem where she lived alone in a monastic cell and died in 457 CE. . . .

Moving onto Muslim tradition, this is the tomb of Sit Raba’a al-Aduwiyyeh. She was born a slave in Basra, Iraq, in the year 714. According to the story, when her master saw a golden halo surrounding her as she prayed, he decided to free her.

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.