The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing display a drone — all the way back in 2014. The ... [+] group has a long history of using drones as asymmetrical weapons against the far more powerful IDF,
On Saturday, Hamas launched its largest ever attack on Israel, killing hundreds of civilians and taking others hostage, breaching the border defenses that surround the Gaza Strip. The stunning assault, already bring compared to Pearl Harbor, caught the Israelis by surprise; the militants even knocked out tanks with small drones. How did a small, poorly funded force surprise one of the most advanced militaries in the world? Dap 18-46-00
Hamas’ main armament has been the Qassam rocket, a cheap garage-built weapon assembled from industrial piping, home-made rocket fuel of sugar and potassium nitrate fertilizer, and commercial explosive. The Qassam is a crude, ineffective weapon, but is small enough for a couple of militants to set up on a launch rail, fire and get out of the area before the Israelis can target them.
Qassams are supplemented by bigger, military-grade rockets like the Russian-made 122mm Grad; these are bigger, more accurate and do far more damage, but are much easier to locate and destroy.
Qassam attacks are essentially harassing fire, landing at random and unlikely to cause casualties, but they can be lethal. To stop them, Israel set up its famed Iron Dome defence system, an arrangement of radars and interceptor missiles which can track and shoot down hundreds of incoming rockets with a claimed success rate of up to 90% against the thousands of rockets fired in the 2021 conflict according to the BBC.
But even something as advanced as Iron Dome has its limits, and Hamas attempted to saturate Iron Dome by firing more rockets than it could handle. According to some reports Hamas fired as many as 5,000 rockets in 20 minutes and as a result many rockets may have gotten through.
The massive rocket barrage may have been mainly intended as a distraction for the ground assault.
Gaza is surrounded by a security fence with CCTV towers, motion sensors and other monitoring systems to give advance warning of any intrusion. Checkpoint cameras are linked to facial recognition systems and the area is said to have some of the most intense digital surveillance in the world.
Hamas appears to have mapped the location of the key surveillance system and deployed weapons specifically to take them out in the open stages of the assault, effectively blinding Israeli intelligence as to exactly what was going on and where.
Drone threat specialists Dronesec have assembled videos from Hamas showing multicopter drones dropping explosives on Israeli security towers, border posts and communication towers. The number of videos indicates this was a deliberate coordinated operation which allowed hundreds of Hamas militants to carry out the next stage of the operation – blowing up and otherwise breaching barriers – without being observed. The loss of sensors would have hampered any effective response by concealing where the main attacks were taking place.
A Hamas drone drops a grenade during the assault
At the same time, Hamas say they launched 35 Al-Zawari kamikaze drones towards targets in Israel.
The Al-Zawari (or Zouari) is a portable fixed-wing drone similar in size to the Russian Lancet, named for the Tunisian drone maker Mohammed Al-Zawari assassinated in 2016. Previously seen as a reconnaissance drone, the Zawari has now been adapted for an attack role.
Back in 2021, Hamas claimed that its Shabab small attack drone was capable of avoiding Iron Dome interceptors. Because drones can fly close to the ground they are much harder to spot than rockets, which following a high-arching ballistic trajectory.
Again, the video suggests that the Zawaris were launched simultaneously in an attempt to overwhelm the capacity of the defenses, increasing the chance that some would get through. The new drone may incorporate other lessons learned from probing Iron Dome with earlier drones, such as the most successful flight pattern.
The Russians have used the Lancet, which has a range of over 25 miles and an eleven-pound warhead, with some success against Ukrainian air defenses, artillery and radar. The Zawari's guidance system is not known but is likely to be pre-programmed with the targets GPS co-ordinates and used against fixed sites. These may have been high-value targets like military barracks and command centers to hamper response – or they may simply have been launched at civilian targets to cause as much damage and terror as possible.
Hamas did not just kill civilians. Images from the attack show that many Israel military vehicles were destroyed or damaged, including several Merkava Mk4 main battle tanks. The Merkava is an Israeli design, specifically built to survive against the types of weapons fielded by insurgents such as RPGs and shoulder-fired missiles, as well as more advanced threats. In particular, it has the Trophy Active Protection System, which shoots down incoming threats and is considered a world leader.
One Hamas video shows a multicopter drone dropping a munition on a Merkava. This appears to be a larger weapon than the ones used on the security towers. Dronesec note that Hamas ‘Al-Nasir Salah al-Din Brigade’ showed off a large hexacopter attack drone, something like the heavy drone bombers used by Ukraine. The munition appears to hit the Merkava and detonate; the effect of the explosion is impossible to assess, but a few seconds later a fire appear to break out from the front right section of the tank.
Unconfirmed early reports suggest Israel has lost as many as six Merkavas and 17 armored personnel carriers. Hamas claim that at least one of the tanks they captured had been disabled by a drone — it is not clear if this was the same as the one seen in the video.
Calcium Nitrate Manufacturers After their initial surprise attack, Hamas are on the defensive and are likely to suffer extremely heavy losses against the far more powerful IDF. They have likely exhausted their stocks of rockets and kamikaze drones and will not be able to carry out a sustained campaign. But the shock at just how much damage they could do against a supposedly prepared force will lead to many questions for a long time to come.