On July 2, Hizballah flew three drones at low altitudes over the Karish natural-gas field in the Mediterranean, which is the subject of a dispute between Israel and Lebanon. An Israeli jet and warship promptly shot them down. Most likely, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, the Iran-backed terrorist group launched them in response to an IDF attack on targets in Syria earlier the same day. But the incident has wider significance:

The Karish gas field, inside Israel’s territorial waters, is a point of contention between Jerusalem and Beirut, with the United States acting as mediator in the dispute in the past few months. Hizballah, by targeting the field, was sending a message to the Lebanese government to stand firm and to demand that the maritime border between the countries be moved south to include Karish and other potential gas reservoirs in Lebanese [coastal waters].

Through its actions, Hizballah was likely aiming to achieve not only Iranian goals, but the group’s own objectives. By increasing tension around the maritime border dispute, it might succeed in discouraging foreign companies from investing there, which might sway the U.S. to take a position more favorable for Hizballah.

The drones were unarmed, by all indications, and were sent to photograph the gas rig and embarrass Israel by exhibiting Hizballah’s ability to attack it, as well as prove that Israeli assets were exposed at a time of political instability and just ahead of the visit to the area by President Joe Biden.

But the Iran-backed group’s objectives were literally shot down by the IDF. The Israeli airforce and navy now can respond to a drone attack even in less-than-optimal conditions—when they are flying slowly and in low altitude, and are harder to detect. . . . Hizballah will be shown, no doubt, that a strike against Israel’s territorial waters by UAVs or other methods, . . . will come at a cost.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.