Last week, the young Israeli scholar Eitam Henkin was murdered along with his wife Naama in front of their four children. His brother Yagil Henkin, a military historian, spoke at the funeral:

The Torah world lost one of the great rabbis and leaders of the next generation, and the academic world lost an excellent scholar. And I lost a brother, which, you can imagine, isn’t less important for me.

However, this is not the only reason you all came here [today]. The many people who are here, and the reason we eulogize during the Sukkot holiday [when halakhah normally forbids eulogizing the dead], is that it was not blind fate that took the lives of Eitam and Naama. They are harugei malkhut, the term used for those who died as part of the unceasing struggle of the Jewish people. . . .

Eitam and Naama are people slain by acts of hostility. They are not “terror victims.” Do not call them “terror victims,” and do not say that Israel is in a war on terror.

Israel has no war on terror. There was never a war on terror, and never will be such a war. . . . There is no such thing as a “terror of stones,” just as there is no “terror by individuals,” no “car terror,” nor is Jerusalem “plagued by stone throwing.” And similarly Eitam and Naama were not murdered—in contrast to a headline on a certain media site—by a passing car that fired at them. These are all methods. Not enemies. Terror is a tool. The one who uses terror is the enemy.

Do not fight terror, fight those who dictate it. I don’t mean, God forbid, to call for acts of vengeance against innocent Arabs. I’m also not implying that we should give up on the ethics of war and the laws of war. My intention is that we should not pretend that there is no hostility, hatred, ideology, or agencies who manage terror. Nor should we pretend that there is no widespread support for terror. We should not forget that there is a religious and national conflict that has laid and continues to lay the foundation for terrorism.

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.