Founded as an Iran-backed Shiite political party-cum-terrorist organization in Lebanon in the early 1980s, Hizballah made its name with its devastating attack on U.S. Marines in Beirut. It then fought a fifteen-year guerrilla war against Israel, which eventually succeeded in driving the IDF from southern Lebanon, while at the same time carrying out deadly terrorist attacks on Jews wherever they could be found. Since 2006, it has also become, in Matthew Levitt’s words, the “managing partner for Iran’s network of militant proxies” throughout the Middle East. Levitt explains this transition, and provides an in-depth history of the group that now has one of the world’s largest missile arsenals pointed at Israel:

Hizballah’s roles in the wars in Iraq [since the U.S. invasion] and Syria [since the civil war began in that country] changed the nature of how the group’s alliance with Iran plays out in practice throughout the region, including significant deployments of Hizballah personnel beyond Lebanon’s borders and a well-organized training program to help Iran develop networks of Shiite militant fighters.

The first signs of Hizballah’s shift to a regional posture in support of Iranian interests were structural and involved moving key personnel from positions focused on Israel to those involving Iraq, Yemen, and Syria. As Hizballah trained more Shiite fighters from around the region, and then led them in battles across Syria, the group emerged as the leader and coalescing force for a broad range of Shiite militants tied to Iran and the Quds Force, the branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) primarily responsible for foreign operations. Over time, the Quds Force’s commander Qassem Suleimani personally assumed more of a command leadership position over Hizballah’s fighting forces, at times at the expense of the group’s own commanders.

Then, following the January 2020 assassination of Suleimani, . . . Hizballah assumed more of a leadership role coordinating the activities of a broad network of Shiite militant proxies—the “Resistance Axis”—on behalf of Iran’s IRGC. Taken together, these events shifted Hizballah’s center of gravity in the region from being a Lebanese militia primarily focused on activities in Lebanon and opposition to Israel to . . . playing a leadership role for Iran’s regional network of militant proxies.

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.