As early as the 3rd century CE, Christian writers argued that Jews lived in exile, with their Temple destroyed and their sovereignty lost, because God had chosen to punish them for their rejection of Jesus. Jewish thinkers had a simple rebuttal: God was indeed punishing His people with exile—as the biblical prophets had said He would—but was doing so because they had failed to observe His Law. In the Middle Ages, as Jewish-Christian relations became more intimate, Jews developed what Michael Weiner argues is a different sort of answer: imagining that in some faraway land, Jews maintained their political independence:

The medieval legends told about such Jews, often understood to be the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, [suggest] that not all Jews were content to accept traditional explanations for exile and loss of autonomy, and desired the comfort of knowing that Jews still ruled somewhere, somehow.

[When] the 14th-century Spanish Rabbi Shlomo ha-Levi converted to Christianity, his [former] student Yehoshua ha-Lorki wrote a letter to him attempting to bring him back into the fold by rebutting arguments for Christianity. He included a telling passage insisting that Jewish subjugation under Christendom didn’t prove anything because, after all, “the members of the ten tribes continue to conduct an independent life, . . . not dominated by any foreign power.”

Other examples abound. The writings of Eldad ha-Dani, a 9th-century Jewish merchant who traveled throughout Europe claiming to be the member of a Jewish community in East Africa that descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, were widely read, discussed, and accepted by many. A medieval Jewish folktale about the origins of Akdamut, [a liturgical poem for the festival of Shavuot], relates that during a period of dangerous Christian anti-Semitism, Rabbi Meir of Worms traveled across the Sambatyon River, [the legendary stream that rests on the Sabbath], to meet with an otherworldly Jewish community beyond the river, some of whose members he sent back to Worms to defeat an anti-Semitic priest through mystical incantations and invocations of God’s name.

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.