Besides having a small army that has been fighting to prop up Bashar Assad’s rule in Syria, an estimated 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel in Lebanon (a country it more or less controls), and engaging in terrorist attacks on Jewish, Israeli, and American targets worldwide, Hizballah also runs a global crime syndicate that serves to fund its other activities. Money laundering for drug cartels forms the core of the Iranian proxy group’s illicit activities, but it also runs its own narcotics operation, smuggles illegal timber, and much else. Emanuele Ottolenghi provides an example:

[In April], Saudi officials seized more than 5 million Captagon pills hidden in a pomegranate shipment from Lebanon. They believe Hizballah is behind the shipment. Captagon, a powerful synthetic drug currently flooding both European and Gulf markets, is increasingly produced in Syria and the Hizballah-controlled Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. From there, it is smuggled out through the Syrian port of Latakia or directly from Lebanon, thanks to the ongoing cooperation between the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, who controls the production, and Hizballah, which manages the logistics. Shipments tied to this racket of Iranian proxies keep showing up in alarming quantities all over the Mediterranean.

But more than narcotics-trafficking is at stake here:

As if its criminal empire was not concerning enough, there is another dimension to Hizballah’s racketeering that should have Washington’s attention. The same international network that conducts Hizballah’s business operations also provides the infrastructure for terror attacks.

The Iranian regime has also engaged in brazen human trafficking and exploitation of refugees. The Department of State Trafficking in Persons 2020 Report documents how the Iranian regime forces “Afghan migrants, including children as young as twelve years old,” to fight in in Syria under threat of arrest and deportation. The report also highlights “a government policy or pattern of recruiting and using child soldiers, and a pattern of government officials perpetrating sex trafficking of adults and children with impunity.”

Yet the White House is currently considering a deal that will lift numerous sanctions on the Iranian regime, and make it harder to impose new ones. Ottolenghi concludes:

Let Iran reopen for business, and the surplus cash will fund a global criminal enterprise. Restoring the flow of money to Tehran’s coffers means Washington will no longer leverage sanctions, vigorously prosecute money launderers and drug traffickers, or impose steeper penalties on their enablers in order to disrupt the Iranian regime and its proxies’ criminal endeavors. Neither will it use diplomatic pressure on allies who have not yet designated Hizballah as a terror organization. Instead, Washington will be complicit in the survival and expansion of a band of criminals who want to harm U.S. national interests.

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.