In his celebrated study of bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway singles out one practitioner—Sidney Franklin—as “a better, more scientific, more intelligent, and more finished matador than all but about six of the full matadors in Spain today.” Erol Araf describes Franklin’s career:

Hemingway intensely admired Sidney Franklin, a sublime bullfighter who was born in Brooklyn, New York to Orthodox Jewish parents. . . . When the Spanish Civil War erupted, Franklin sided with Francisco Franco, who was also among his admirers, and under whose aegis he continued to perform. Before the result of the war was determined, he tagged along as a paid interpreter while Hemingway and the director Joris Ivens filmed the classic documentary [of the war], The Spanish Earth.

He eventually fell out with Hemingway [after] casting his lot with [Franco’s] Phalange, [which] was simply reprehensible to the author. . . .

After the war, his days as a matador behind him, Franklin appeared in a few films in the U.S. and Mexico. . . . He wrote an autobiography, Bullfighter from Brooklyn, and he also was a close friend of the American actor and legend James Dean. . . . The “matador of the Torah,” as he was known in Spain, died in obscurity in a nursing home in New York in 1976.

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.