This week’s infiltration of a Syrian drone into Israeli airspace, and the failure to intercept it with Patriot missiles, seemingly exposed the limitations of Israel’s air defense systems against the threat of such a small and slow unmanned aerial vehicles that could potentially attack targets within the country.

The unmanned aerial vehicle threat is not new, but rather it has existed for many years, operated by various terrorist groups who seek to take advantage of the airspace to penetrate into Israel and carry out terrorist activities.

In 1987, a terrorist from Ahmed Jebreel’s group penetrated from Lebanon with an air glider, attacked a vehicle and tent encampment of the IDF’s Nahal Infantry Brigade and killed six soldiers. The air defense system was not designed to deal with a threat of this kind.

During the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah attempted to penetrate Israeli air space with Iranian-made Ababil drones, which were eventually shot down by Israel Air Force jets. Another Hezbollah drone was shot down in 2013 off the Haifa coast, where the terrorist organization was likely testing Israel’s air defenses. Hamas also has the ability to fly unmanned aerial vehicles into Israel and even tried during Operation Protective Edge to deploy a drone to Tel Aviv.

Read the full article on the Jerusalem Post.