WSJ: Hezbollah expands use of FPV drones against Israeli forces

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has increasingly deployed first-person-view (FPV) drones in attacks on Israeli military units, creating a serious challenge for Israel’s armed forces, which have not previously faced such a scale of threat in the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Unnamed sources said the use of such drones by Hezbollah has become more systematic in recent weeks, Caliber.Az reports.

FPV drones are small, relatively inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles controlled via a live video feed from the drone’s perspective.

They have become widely used in modern conflicts, including the war between Russia and Ukraine, and more recently by Iran-aligned groups in Iraq in attacks on US forces.

Their advantages include difficulty of detection, high precision, and low cost—typically only a few hundred dollars per unit.

Israeli authorities and military leadership are reportedly facing domestic criticism over what is seen as insufficient preparedness for this type of threat, despite lessons from Ukraine.

The Israel Defence Forces are currently developing countermeasures to detect and neutralise the emerging threat.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov