Between 1941 and 1944, the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators murdered some 70,000 Jews in a clearing in the forest of Ponar (now Paneriai), not far from the Lithuanian city of Vilna. Using advanced technology to explore the mass graves, an ongoing project has discovered a tunnel, previously known only from the accounts of survivors, by which some Jewish prisoners managed to escape. Nicholas St. Fleur writes:

In 1943, when it became clear the Soviets were going to take over Lithuania, the Nazis began to cover up the evidence of the mass killings. They forced a group of 80 Jews to exhume the bodies, burn them, and bury the ashes. . . .

About half of the group spent 76 days digging a tunnel in their holding pit by hand and with spoons they found among the bodies. On April 15, 1944—the last night of Passover, when they knew the night would be darkest—[they] crawled through the two-foot-square tunnel entrance and through to the forest.

The noise alerted the guards, who pursued the prisoners with guns and dogs. Of the 80, twelve managed to escape; eleven of them survived the war and went on to tell their stories, according to the researchers.

The archaeologist Richard Freund and his team used the information from survivors’ accounts to search for the tunnel. Rather than excavate and disturb the remains, he and his team used two non-invasive tools—electrical-resistivity tomography and ground-penetrating radar.

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.