Born in 1934 as Schaja Shachnowski in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas (known to Jews as Kovno), Sidney Shachnow died in North Carolina on September 27. In 1941, the Nazis had herded Shachnow and his family, along with the other local Jews, into a ghetto, where most either died of starvation and disease or were murdered. Against all odds, nine-year-old Schaja managed to escape, as Richard Sandomir relates:

Leaving behind his weeping parents one morning before dawn, . . . Schaja hid under his Uncle Willie’s long coat as the uncle, with Schaja moving in rhythm with him, walked through the gates, passing guards and a work detail that was often sent outside the ghetto. Shortly afterward, children at the camp were liquidated. When he and his uncle reached the streets beyond the gates of the ghetto, . . . his uncle gave him a prearranged signal to emerge from under the coat and find his contact, a woman wearing a red kerchief. . . .

[Later on] he was taken in by a Roman Catholic family and lived with them for several months. He was then reunited with his mother, who had escaped from the ghetto, and his younger brother, Mula, who had been smuggled to safety disguised as a girl.

After the Red Army retook Lithuania, Schaja and his family, wishing to avoid Soviet tyranny, fled to the Allied zone in Germany, where they reunited with Schaja’s father and then left for the U.S. Shachnow went on to join the Green Berets, was decorated twice in Vietnam, commanded an elite clandestine unit in Berlin, and eventually attained the rank of major general. He was serving as the Army’s commanding officer in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell:

As a German-speaking combat veteran, General Shachnow was well suited to serve in Berlin. But as a Holocaust survivor, he was confronted with what he felt was a delicious irony: his headquarters had been those of the powerful Nazi official Hermann Göring, and his residence had once belonged to Fritz Reinhardt, a finance minister under Hitler. . . .

After leaving Berlin, he was appointed commander of the Special Forces and commanding general of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, NC. . . . He retired from the Army in 1994.

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.