A year ago last Wednesday, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and the U.S. formally signed normalization agreements at the White House. Zev Stub discusses the trade that has flourished since then:

According to data published by [Israel’s] Central Bureau of Statistics, trade in goods between Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached about $610 million from January to July 2021. Israel exported $210 million and imported $400 million, with diamonds comprising about half of all trade. Those numbers don’t include high-tech-services exports, which comprise a significant share of bilateral trade, the Israel Export Institute noted.

Both sides are very optimistic about future trade growth, with hopes of exceeding $1 billion this year and reaching $3 billion within three years, trade organizations say. That means that if year one was filled with lots of talk about peace, relationships, and potential, the coming years will yield significant returns.

Israeli businesses are starting to see the UAE not just as a new market, but as a hub where they can access markets in South Asia, East Africa, India, and Bangladesh for the first time. “These are markets with billions of people, and you can’t work with them from Tel Aviv,” says Dorian Barak, co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council. “The UAE is the place where everyone congregates to do business, and Israel has finally been admitted to that club.”

On Monday, Abu Dhabi’s economy minister announced that he hoped for $1 trillion in trade with the Jewish state over the next ten years.

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.