LONDON: Israel is scrambling to counter a new battlefield threat after Hezbollah’s growing use of fiber-optic drones — a weapon many experts say has fundamentally changed modern warfare — exposed a dangerous gap in its defenses.
Cheap, difficult to detect and immune to electronic jamming, the drones have become one of the defining weapons of the war in Ukraine and are now appearing in conflicts elsewhere, including southern Lebanon.
On April 26, the Israel Defense Force suffered its first known fatalities from a fiber optic drone when one soldier was killed and six others wounded after their position in southern Lebanon was struck. Hezbollah later released footage of the attack filmed by the drone.
A screengrab taken from a video released by Hezbollah says to show an Israeli tank and soldiers gathered next to it moments before being hit by an FPV drone attack, in Taybeh, Lebanon, with the date of the video given as April 26, 2026. (Hezbollah military media/Handout via Reuters)
According to reports, at least a dozen Israeli soldiers have since been killed by the drones after fighting in Lebanon resumed in March.
