In December, Netflix began distributing the Israeli television drama Fauda, about an IDF undercover unit in pursuit of a high-ranking Hamas terrorist, and found that it had an eager audience abroad. This, writes Ethan Bronner, is just the latest example of the Jewish state’s newfound success as an exporter of televised entertainment:

In the past few years, networks worldwide have picked up dozens of series that originated in Israel—Homeland and In Treatment among them—placing the country of 8 million among the world’s top producers of shows. . . . In many ways, Israel’s reputation as a high-tech start-up nation is spreading to TV. Like Israeli technology companies, networks such as Yes, Keshet, and Hot must reach beyond their tiny domestic market to make any money. So they’ve adopted many of the same bootstrapping low-budget habits and tapped Israel’s immigrant-rich, melting-pot culture for ideas.

Keshet, Israel’s biggest production house, has opened offices in Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, and Mexico City to sell shows, help create foreign adaptations—and, lately, produce original programming overseas. . . . “Hollywood increasingly sees Israel as a laboratory,” says Hagai Levi, who created In Treatment for Israel’s Hot and The Affair for Showtime. He’s now working on a co-production between Keshet and HBO tentatively titled Flesh of Our Flesh, about the summer of 2014, when Jewish youths were kidnapped and murdered and Israel went to war in Gaza.

HBO’s interest in Levi’s series—about intensely local events, shot on location in Hebrew and Arabic—highlights the growing global hunger for new kinds of entertainment. That has spurred the creation of programs that few believed might find an audience either in Israel or abroad. “TV has suddenly started to deal with Israeli identity partly because of this market overseas,” says Moti Gigi, a communications professor at Sapir College in southern Israel.

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.