Israel-Hamas War: How Hamas Used Commercial Drones in Recent Terror Attack

Military experts have expressed grave worries about Hamas' use of novel methods in a recent massive terror strike against Israel. Along with motorized gliders to sneak heavily armed terrorists into Israel from Gaza, Hamas used weaponized commercial drones to damage fixed Israeli defenses.

Hamas attacked vulnerable Israeli military locations using commercial four-rotor drones with a mortar-like payload, NDTV reported. Military analysts throughout the world are concerned that insurgencies and extremist groups may emulate this inventive use of commercial drones.

According to The New York Times, Hamas has previously tried to target communication towers using low-tech techniques, such as flying flaming kites over the Gaza Strip in 2018. But in the most recent terror attempt on Israel, Hamas launched an assault using a horde of commercial drones fitted with tiny explosives. This new strategy surprised the Israeli defensive forces, along with the deployment of motorized gliders and bulldozers to cross the border.

Israel's Defense Struggled Against Hamas Drones

Despite being armored on the sides, the Israeli monitoring towers along the border barrier were roofless. The result was that the drones' explosives struck the gunner's seat directly, taking out Israel's first line of border defense.

Footage also showed Hamas effectively damaging an Israeli Merkava Mark IV tank, which cost around $3.5 million. It looked like a drone dropped a mortar during the strike. Since tanks often have thinner armor on the top, man-portable anti-tank missile systems frequently take advantage of this vulnerability.

Iron Dome is Israel's sophisticated air defense system. However, it is hypothesized that the thousands of rockets that were launched overhead at the beginning of the operation functioned as a "smokescreen," allowing the Hamas attack drones to break through and hit strategic targets with their lower trajectories, straining the Iron Dome, according to a report from Insider.

Drone Tech is Changing Modern Warfare

The availability of commercial drones, which are easy to find at nearby electronics stores, distinguishes this attack strategy from others. These are the same drones that are frequently used to make videos for Instagram and YouTube. The first recorded sighting of commercial drones used in military operations in the war in Ukraine.

Small drones armed with homemade hand grenades and mortar shells were used to attack the Russian military's armored divisions in Ukraine, where they were up against overwhelming odds. This innovative strategy was quite successful because tiny drones, which could devastate troops or cripple vehicles for a small fraction of the price of an armored personnel carrier, posed a serious threat to bigger military formations.

Bernard Hudson, a drone technology entrepreneur and former CIA intelligence chief, posted his concern on X, asking if Western powers have stronger defenses against the threat of armed commercial drones.

Recognizing the expanding threat that drones offer in modern-day war situations, several governments have invested in anti-drone technologies, including jammers to destroy or override drone functions.