Born in 1929 to an aristocratic Dutch mother and an English father, the famed actress Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood in Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. She was in the last of these when World War II began, and despite her young age, eventually became involved with the anti-Nazi resistance, as Rich Tenorio recounts:

[Hepburn’s] mother, the Baroness Ella van Heemstra, met Hitler in the 1930s and wrote admiringly about him in British fascist publications—but changed her mind during the brutal Nazi occupation of the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945. By contrast, the continuing Nazi sympathies of van Heemstra’s ex-husband—Hepburn’s father Joseph Ruston—kept him jailed [in Britain] for the duration of the war. . . .

The baroness began to support the Dutch resistance after the Nazis executed Hepburn’s beloved uncle, Otto Ernst Gelder [in 1942]. Volunteering for the resistance, [Hepburn] aided Jews in hiding, raising funds through dancing to keep them safe. [At her family’s urging, she also refused] an order to join a Nazi artists’ committee, ending her burgeoning dance career, which had made her [the city of] Arnhem’s most famous ballerina by 1944. . . . Hepburn also assisted a remarkable doctor, Hendrik Visser ’t Hooft, who helped shelter hundreds of Jews in the town of Velp throughout the war. . . .

Invited in 1958 to play the role of the most famous Dutch Holocaust victim in the film version of The Diary of Anne Frank, Hepburn found the subject too close to home and turned it down. . . Years after becoming a household name, [however], she took part in public readings of the play.

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.