By Arie Egozi, Autonomy Global – Ambassador for Israel
In real-world combat, protection against unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) remains far from effective, even as new counter‑UAS systems reach the market almost daily. Demonstrations of Israeli-made protection systems show that when a threat drone takes off in full line of sight, detection and interception can work flawlessly. But when Israel has had to protect cities and bases from Iranian-made drones operated by Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, the operational results have been far less impressive.
Along the Israel–Lebanon border, armed drones operated by Hezbollah almost daily penetrated Israeli airspace, in many cases causing damage and casualties. Similarly, operations over northern Israel have shown that even highly advanced systems struggle to protect a nation’s airspace in wartime conditions.
Detection and verification remain the two critical capabilities that will determine whether counter‑UAS systems can keep pace with the fast-growing threat of armed drones. Both still require significant improvement, particularly in complex terrain.
“In the mountainous area in the border zone with Lebanon, such a line of sight does not exist,” one Israeli expert said, highlighting how terrain breaks the sensor chain that many systems rely on. The expert warned that when identification is not positive, anti-drone systems themselves can become a threat to manned and unmanned platforms on the defending side. “The currently used systems do not have these capabilities, especially when they have to protect a long border zone,” the expert added.
In response to evolving threats, Israel has introduced new interception systems capable of taking down hostile drones. Israeli defense companies have been among the first to field anti-drone systems, including Rafael’s Iron Beam high‑energy laser. However, when low-flying drones operate in mountainous terrain, detection remains the primary bottleneck, regardless of the interceptor used. Israeli experts say existing anti‑drone systems provide only partial protection against low‑flying UAVs and face serious limitations against small, slow or autonomous platforms designed to evade traditional sensors.
Low-flying drones often have very small radar cross-sections. This makes it difficult for radars to distinguish them from ground clutter. RF and acoustic sensors can help but struggle with autonomous or fiber‑optic guided drones that are immune to jamming, while EO/IR systems are constrained by weather conditions and line‑of‑sight. Together, these constraints underscore that without major advances in detection and positive identification, even sophisticated counter‑UAS architectures will continue to offer only limited protection against the rapidly evolving drone threat.
The growing number of operational incidents along Israel’s borders now serve as a real‑world stress test for counter‑UAS architectures, and the results have exposed a dangerous capability gap. Until detection and positive identification dramatically improve, especially against low, small, slow, and autonomous drones in complex terrain, no combination of interceptors, from kinetic effectors to systems like Iron Beam, will deliver the persistent, reliable air defense that front‑line forces and civilian populations urgently need.