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fighting the war as if there are no negotiations, and
negotiating as if there is no war
Avi Melamed

It is dangerous to be found in the company of God's enemies

Operation Northern Arrows - 13 October 2024

Hezbollah fired some 320 projectiles at civilians in the Jewish state on the High Holiday of Yom Kippur, according to the Israel Defense Forces. “This should tell you everything you need to know about our enemies,” the IDF said. Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, stated that “Hezbollah’s latest targets were elderly Jews and Holocaust survivors in a retirement home.” Herzog stated “On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon fired a drone which hit the Beit Juliana Retirement Home in Herzliya—named for the late queen of the Netherlands, the grandmother of His Majesty King Willem-Alexander—and whose residents include Holocaust survivors, who came to Israel from the Netherlands”.

Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the United Nations on 11 October 2024 to issue an "immediate" ceasefire resolution in Lebanon, where Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in an open confrontation for nearly three weeks. Mikati renewed the Lebanese government's commitment to deploying the army on the border with Israel to allow for a cessation of hostilities, and stressed that Hezbollah "agrees" to this issue.

Mikati said after his government meeting that the Council of Ministers decided to "ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to submit a request to the UN Security Council calling on it to take a decision for a complete and immediate ceasefire." He stressed "the Lebanese government's commitment to implementing Security Council Resolution 1701 , especially its section related to deploying the army in southern Lebanon and strengthening its presence on the Lebanese border." He stressed that "the decision is still valid, Hezbollah also agrees, Hezbollah is a partner in this government and agrees to this issue," according to his expression.

Hezbollah announced 13 October 2024 that it had targeted a training camp for the Golani Brigade in the Binyamina area, south of Haifa, with a squadron of attack drones, in response to the massacres committed by Israel in Beirut and the rest of Lebanon. The attack resulted in the killing of 4 Israeli soldiers and the injury of dozens. The party said that its qualitative drones were able to penetrate the Israeli air defense radars without being detected and reached their target. Hezbollah did not announce the name or model of the drone, nor did it publish any pictures of it. In a statement, it threatened Israel with more attacks if it continued its aggression against Lebanon. The statement added that the attack came in response to a series of Israeli attacks, especially on the Al-Nuwairi and Al-Basta neighborhoods in the capital Beirut and other Lebanese regions.

Hezbollah's drone operation exposed significant vulnerabilities in Israel's defense systems. The attack, which killed four Israeli soldiers and wounded dozens at an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) stronghold, highlighted gaps in Israel’s multi-layered air defense, as the unmanned aircraft bypassed detection. Hezbollah claimed responsibility, stating the drone successfully penetrated Israeli radar as part of a broader strategy involving simultaneous missile and drone launches.

The strike was one of the worst mass casualty incidents in Israel in a year of its ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, surpassing the impact of dozens of Iranian ballistic missiles and repeated rocket barrages from Hamas and Hezbollah. The report emphasized that this massive impact was caused by "a single drone." This strike followed a series of similar attacks in recent weeks, revealing Israel’s ongoing struggle to combat drones, which are more difficult to detect and intercept than rockets or missiles due to their smaller size, slower speed, and use of plastic components. "We already have six dead in the past 10 days from drones. That’s too much," said Ran Kochav, a former head of the IDF's aerial defense command, emphasizing that drones "have become a real threat." Kochav explained that Israel had spent years prioritizing its air defense systems to counter rockets and missiles, while drones were not initially considered a significant concern. "We were busy in recent years ... and unmanned (aerial vehicles) was not a top priority," he said. "The results unfortunately are not good."

Israeli officials were investigating how the drone evaded detection, with Security Minister Yoav Gallant vowing to learn from the strike and said Israel was "concentrating significant efforts in developing solutions" to tackle the drone issue. According to Tal Beeri, the director of research for The Alma Research and Education Center, "Hezbollah in May used for the first and only time a drone that was able to fire an anti-tank missile and that it may possess more." He added, "Hezbollah has also used drones to erode Israel’s air-defense capabilities by slamming them into the very batteries and infrastructure meant to take them down."

In the wake of the operation, Israeli news outlets described Hezbollah's attack as "difficult, disturbing, and problematic," according to a report by the Israeli Maariv website. Another news website, The Israel Hayom, reported that 52 Israeli soldiers from the Golani Brigade remain hospitalized, with several in critical condition. Israel currently lacked a dedicated interception system to handle drones launched from Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, Maariv emphasized. Maariv explained that the chances of downing a drone are lower than intercepting missiles, and this is why Hezbollah and other factions have chosen this weapon, stressing that the Israeli military "must act defensively" to bring down these drones.

Israel considers that Resolution 1701 has expired, and therefore demands the withdrawal of the international forces ( UNIFIL ) from the region. It also accuses these forces of obstructing the progress of its army and even goes so far as to accuse them of forming human shields to protect Hezbollah fighters. Netanyahu called on Sunday for the immediate withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon ( UNIFIL ) from the south, while Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati stressed that the call represents a lack of compliance with international legitimacy. Netanyahu called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a televised address, saying, "It is time for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and combat zones," claiming that this was done so as not to endanger it.