In Lebanon, Hizballah runs multiple networks of private religious schools, and likely exerts influence over other educational institutions, both public and private. In an in-depth report, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) delves into the anti-Semitic propaganda that permeates the curricula of two of the Iran-backed terrorist group’s most prominent school systems. Herewith, a few examples:

[One sixth-grade] ancient-history textbook . . . is divided into chapters surveying various ancient civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean with a rather notable exception: the Jewish people. Instead, the Jews are only discussed in chapters of this book about other civilizations. . . . It claims that Judaism teaches its adherents they are “the masters of the world and the emperors of the universe, which nobody is entitled to belong to, no matter his station” and that “this is what made them hated and outcast, and perhaps what intensified people’s aversion to them: their unjustness, their arrogance, their greed, and their monopolizing.”

The sixth-grade religion textbook called Islam Is Our Message [includes] a lesson about the Jews and Muslims of Medina that opens with [a] Quranic verse about the “animosity” of “the Jews.” [It] then jumps to the present day, telling of a family watching the news on television about “the crimes of the Zionists in Palestine.”

Notably, these textbooks use the term “Zionists” interchangeably with “Jews,” even using the former when discussing the Jews of the ancient world. A group of fifth-graders, meanwhile, concluded a lesson about the Balfour Declaration by chanting “Death to Israel, Death to America!” And then there are the Mahdi Scouts, a Hizballah youth organization, which teaches members that “the root of [Israel’s] existence is evil, and there is no cure for it except its eradication.” But, the ADL argues, Washington has some power to combat this incitement.

[S]everal of Hizballah’s educational institutions could be ripe targets for international sanctions because of their clear role in Hizballah’s system of terrorist recruitment, as a sort of conveyor belt for generating future members, combatants, and leaders. Such sanctions could be surprisingly effective in this case, in part because of a new  law passed by Congress in 2018 with the ADL’s encouragement that provides the U.S. government with added authorities to deter foreign transactions that benefit Hizballah. . . . [Moreover], sanctions could deter certain third-party actors in Lebanon from conducting business as usual with educational entities that benefit Hizballah.

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.