As yesterday’s votes are still being calculated, Israeli politicians are preparing for the coalition negotiations that will determine who will be the next prime minister. One of the frontrunners is Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud party depends crucially on the support of the Religious Zionism party, led by Bezalel Smotrich, to obtain the 61 Knesset seats necessary to form a government. But, notes Haviv Rettig Gur, as much as those who vote for Smotrich are implicitly signifying their support for Netanyahu, the relationship between the two politicians has become increasingly tense:

Over the last four races, rightwing parties ran at Netanyahu’s side with the insistence that Netanyahu was the right man to lead Israel. But in this fifth race, after four failures at the ballot box and growing frustration with his inability to deliver a victory, a profound change has come over the Netanyahu camp. More and more, the campaigns of rightwing parties have focused not on Netanyahu’s strengths but on his weaknesses. For growing portions of the Israeli right, Netanyahu is seen as a failure—not just electorally, but on policy issues too.

It was under Netanyahu, not [his successor Naftali] Bennett, that May 2021’s internecine fighting between Arabs and Jews tore apart mixed towns like Lod and drew bitter excoriation from rightwing constituencies, especially in those poorer regions of the country where Mizraḥi Jewish and Arab communities live in an uneasy coexistence.

On the Palestinian front, continuing waves of persistent low-level terror attacks, including occasional bursts of Gazan rocket fire, raised new complaints in working-class towns near the Strip about Netanyahu’s longtime policy of ensuring stability in Gaza by allowing Qatar to fund Hamas.

Smotrich and [his far-right coalition partner] Itamar Ben-Gvir see Netanyahu as weak and they intend—they are not shy on the point; it’s their central campaign message—to be unrelenting in their pressure to force Netanyahu rightward once he’s returned to the prime minister’s chair.

As a result, writes Gur, the campaign run by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir amounts to “an uprising wrapped in a bear hug.”

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.