Although the Israeli presence in the West Bank is widely considered a terrible crime against the Palestinian people, it has in fact brought health and prosperity. Yoram Ettinger looks at the statistics:

[F]rom the end of 1967 (586,000 people) until the end of 1992 (1,050,000 people), the Arab population of Judea and Samaria expanded by 79 percent, compared to a mere 0.9-percent growth during the 1950-1967 Jordanian rule. The unprecedented Arab population-growth rate was the outcome of the unprecedented Israeli development of health, medical, transportation, education, and employment infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, following the stagnation during the Jordanian occupation of the area. In addition, Israel offered employment opportunities, in its pre-1967 core, to Judean and Samarian Arabs, who preferred working in Israel to the faraway Arab Gulf states, West Africa, or Latin America.

But this rapid population increase, Ettinger explains, follows a pattern familiar from other cases when “a Third World population . . . benefits from a considerable modernization of infrastructure.” In such instances, a demographic surge is followed by a leveling out, as members of the group in question begin to have fewer children. By contrast, Israeli Jews’ fertility rates remain the highest for any Westernized population. Ettinger explains:

Jewish demography [results from] the Israeli state of mind, which is top-heavy on optimism, faith, patriotism, attachment to roots, collective responsibility, the centrality of children, and a frontier mentality in the face of costly Jewish history and contemporary existential threats in the stormy, violently intolerant, . . . Middle East. . . . Israel’s left and right, doves and hawks, secular and religious, wealthy and poor . . . consider children as a means to enrich their own lives, and secure the civilian and military future of the Jewish state.

Israel’s robust demography refutes the assertion that its Jewish majority is threatened by a supposed Arab “demographic time bomb.”

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.