Drone Threat Spreads From Gaza Fronts to Israel's Borders

IDF Ground Forces Commander Maj.-Gen. Nadav Lotan is working to establish a new corps dedicated to countering low-altitude drones, Walla learned on Tuesday. The move reflects how far the threat has traveled: small, cheap aircraft first used against soldiers and civilians now hang over nearly every front Israel faces.

For more than a decade, the military has tried different ways to stop drones flying close to the ground. Those efforts accelerated after the October 7 massacre, as armies around the world raced to find their own solutions.

A Threat That Reached Civilians

The danger became clear during Hamas attacks along the Gaza border at the start of the war, then again as the IDF pushed its ground maneuver deep into the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah later turned drones on IDF troops in southern Lebanon and used them against civilians on Israel's home front.

That part gets lost in technical detail. These aren't just battlefield weapons. They've been aimed at people in their homes.

The threat isn't limited to attacks. Drones have also been used to smuggle weapons and drugs across the Egyptian and Jordanian borders. Smugglers rely on especially heavy models, capable of carrying payloads weighing dozens of kilograms. Growing concerns also center on the possibility that drones could become a significant threat in the IDF's Judea and Samaria Division and along the Syrian border. That would add a new danger to the West Bank, where the military's presence already shapes daily life for millions of Palestinians.

Building the New Corps

The Defense Ministry and the IDF have accelerated projects to improve drone protection. Some involve Israeli companies; others involve buying technology from abroad. The IDF has begun deploying various defense systems in the field against different kinds of drones, including fiber-optic drones, which conventional militaries find difficult to detect. Armies generally counter them with nets, interceptor drones and ground-based gunfire.

The IDF recently decided to form the low-altitude airspace defense corps from existing border infantry battalions. Initially, it will draw on five battalions that routinely protect the borders with Jordan and Egypt and the security barrier area in the West Bank. Alongside their current responsibility for Israel's land borders, they'll guard against mobile threats in the airspace close to the ground. Assessments say a sixth battalion will be the tactical air defense battalion established during the war, responding to threats from Gaza and Lebanon that emerged on an unprecedented scale.

The Ground Forces will transfer significant resources to help establish the corps and supplement capabilities already available within the Border Defense Corps. Those resources include additional training personnel to build a drone school focused on defensive missions.

The Ground Forces already operate defensive drone capabilities, including intelligence-gathering by drones conducted by Unit 9900 of the Military Intelligence Directorate. According to the article, Military Intelligence could help shape combat doctrine, operational methods, the type and scale of procurement involving drones and related technologies, and training. Amir Bohbot wrote the article.

Why This Matters:

The new corps shows that Israel now treats cheap, low-flying drones as a lasting security problem across its borders, not a passing wartime tactic. For civilians, the stakes are concrete: Israelis on the home front have been targeted from the air, and any expansion of the drone threat to the West Bank or the Syrian border would put more people at risk. Palestinians in the West Bank, who already live under heavy military control, could face still more security measures on top of existing restrictions.

Defensive technology can protect lives, but it can't resolve the conflicts that keep producing the threat. Without a political track, the pattern of attack and counter-measure is likely to keep repeating.