In the December 1915 issue of National Geographic, John Whiting detailed a severe, seemingly supernatural attack of locusts in the Land of Israel. Over the course of 30 pages, Armin Rosen writes, “Whiting often writes as if he’s seeing the Bible come to life in front of him,” citing heavily from the book of Joel.

Subsequent events now make the once-a-generation locust plague that occurred in 1915 seem like a minor horror in the 20th-century history of the land that became the state of Israel. The next several decades of world wars, regular wars, riots, invasions, massacres, and terror attacks might even make the insect swarm of that distant year seem comfortingly separate from the grim agency of human beings, an event belonging only to nature, with nothing much to say about us.

Jews should know better. In the Passover story, locusts are the eighth plague visited upon Pharoah, the antepenultimate rung on the God of Israel’s escalation ladder. The Muslims of Ottoman Palestine in 1915 certainly knew better. “All this is no use; go home and rest, you can do nothing,” an elderly peasant told Whiting, as his team from the American Colony in Jerusalem hunted for locust eggs on Mount Scopus. “They are Allah’s army, and once they fly they will destroy everything.” Whiting admits that events vindicated this stranger’s outlook.

I’ve never encountered any physical evidence or historical memory of this event over decades of visiting and reading and thinking about the Holy Land. But the horrors that a Wilson administration-era National Geographic reader encountered across 30-odd pages, right after eye-catching ads for Beech-Nut Tomato Catsup (“only two hours to make, bottle, and sterilize”) and the Alvin Silver Company’s brand-new Lafayette and George Washington spoon models, are not the kind that would just seem to drop easily out of the collective unconscious.

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.