The great singer and celebrity maintained a longstanding affection for the Jewish state. He first visited Israel in 1962, but his support began much earlier, as Shalom Goldman writes:

In 1947 . . . Sinatra appeared at a benefit concert for the Zionist cause at the Hollywood Bowl. The event was titled “Action for Palestine.” A crowd of 20,000 wildly applauded their idol and called for approval of the partition plan then being deliberated at the United Nations.

The following year, at the request of Zionist leaders, Sinatra smuggled a large amount of money to operatives buying arms for the Haganah. . . . Teddy Kollek, then the Haganah representative in the United States, . . . had purchased a large arms shipment in New York and had to pay the ship’s captain to take it to Palestine. He knew he was being followed by federal agents. To evade them, Kollek asked Sinatra, who was performing at the Copacabana nightclub, to help him evade their surveillance. In Kollek’s words, “In the early hours of the following morning I walked out the front door of the building with a satchel, and the feds followed me. Out the back door went Frank Sinatra, carrying a paper bag filled with cash. He went down to the pier, handed it over, and watched the ship sail.” Years later Sinatra told his daughter Nancy that he did this for the Israelis because “I wanted to help, I was afraid they might fall down.”

Even after the Yom Kippur war, as Israel became increasingly unpopular in liberal circles, Sinatra’s loyalty endured.

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.