Lebanon was the birthplace of drone warfare. In a 1982 battle nicknamed the "Bekaa Valley turkey shoot," the Israeli air force used drones to distract and destroy Syrian air defenses over Lebanon. Over the next two decades, Israel would occupy a "security belt" in southern Lebanon, pioneering the use of drone surveillance to root out local rebels.
But lately, "drone warfare" has meant something rather different to the southern Lebanese. Since April 2024, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah caught the Israeli army off guard with cheap fiber optic attack drones.
