The Temple Mount crisis playing out today seems as much a proxy conflict between Jordan and Turkey as it is a dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. That’s the view of Michael Rubin, who explains the recent history of Muslim maintenance of the site, the third holiest in Islam:

Under the Ottoman Empire, an Islamic Waqf (religious endowment) maintained the Temple Mount. When Jordan emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman collapse, its Ministry of Awqaf took control over Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf. When Israel won control of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, nineteen years after the Jordanian army sought to make the city Judenrein, Israeli authorities agreed to allow the Jordanian-controlled Waqf to continue to manage affairs on the Temple Mount, even as Israel assumed responsibility for security around the holy site. It’s an arrangement that has worked fairly well.

[Now], however, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his administration, rather than Jordan, are seeking the lead on efforts to force Israel to abandon its security measures. Consider these recent stories out of Turkey. “As Organization of Islamic Cooperation term president, I condemn Israeli forces’ use of excess force on our brothers gathered for Friday prayer, the Friday prayer not being allowed in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and Israel’s persistence in its attitude despite all warnings,” he said. Erdogan has also telephoned European leaders to urge them to pressure Israel to remove the security measures.

In other words, Rubin concludes, it seems likely that Erdogan is seeking

a collective Islamic administration (under Turkey’s tutelage, of course) and [is implying] that Jordan’s control has run its course. This has as much to do with Erdogan seeking to restore Turkey’s neo-Ottoman claims over Jerusalem a century after the Ottoman Empire lost the city than it does with sincere concern about the Temple Mount itself. If the White House and European Union truly wish to see calm restored in Jerusalem, it is essential they treat the cause and not simply the symptoms. The problem at the Temple Mount has nothing to do with metal detectors and little to do with Israel. Rather, it’s about a struggle for custodianship in the Islamic world, one which it is essential that [the much more moderate] Jordan wins.

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.