“There are no words,” was the comment Dara Horn heard most often in response to the recent slaughter in Pittsburgh. But, she writes, that’s not quite accurate:

[T]here are words for this, entire books full of words: the books the murdered people were reading at the hour of their deaths. News reports described these victims as praying, but Jewish prayer is not primarily personal or spontaneous. It is communal reading. Public recitations of ancient words, scripts compiled centuries ago and nearly identical in every synagogue in the world. A lot of those words are about exactly this. . . .

When Ruth Mallinger [of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life congregation] was ninety-seven, she and ten other Jews were murdered in their synagogue. There are words for this, too, a Hebrew phrase for 2,500 years’ worth of people murdered for being Jews: kiddush hashem, death in sanctification of God’s name.

[But], in the old stories, those outside the community rarely helped or cared; our ancestors’ consolation came only from one another and from God. But in this horrific week, perhaps our old words might mean something new, [as evidenced by the response of] Americans of every background who inspire more optimism than Jewish history allows. . . . As George Washington vowed in his 1790 letter to a Rhode Island synagogue, America shall be a place where “every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.” Those words aren’t his. They’re from the Hebrew prophet Micah, on the shelves of every synagogue in the world.

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.