Although it is unclear whether Hamas’s recent decision to launch a war against Israel was due to encouragement from Tehran or its own political calculations, there is little doubt that the Islamic Republic is the terrorist group’s major patron. The arsenal Hamas deployed in the recent conflict included Iranian-made rockets and anti-tank missiles, as well as suicide drones that resemble those Iran has given to its other proxy forces. Moreover, the extensive use of rockets has been a pillar of Iranian military doctrine since the 1980s, and the Islamist regime has exported both the tactic and the technology to its proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. Israel has naturally spent decades trying to cut off smuggling routes, but, Behnam Ben Taleblu explains, that won’t be enough:

Tehran has been moving to prioritize domestic rocket, missile, or drone production in jurisdictions where it has previously transferred whole systems. This is true for Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. These changes reveal responsiveness to external stimuli, a desire for a sanctions-resistant and cost-effective security policy, and an ability to transpose lessons from past conflicts across multiple theaters.

As Iran works to make its proxies more militarily self-sufficient, opportunities for weapons interception will be reduced and claims of attribution against Tehran will become harder. [Thus], in 2014, [a senior Iranian commander] likened Iran’s support for local production to teaching a man to fish. “The policies of the Islamic Republic in supporting the resistance forces and the resistance front are to empower them to manufacture and produce their own products,” he added.

[Moreover], after each round of fighting, Iran has rearmed its clients with more lethal capabilities and aided them in the move towards domestic production. Renewed fighting offers Tehran a chance to test these new capabilities, as well as to assess continually the performance of Israel’s layered air- and missile-defense systems. Changes in the number of rockets fired and salvos by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as more multidirectional rocket and drone attacks, all point to an assertive Iran looking to overwhelm systems on a battlefield where Arabs and Israelis will bear the brunt.

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.