300 dead, 1600 injured and still counting

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Hmmm, a lot of folks were saying/thinking this 255 days ago...

The report further detailed that Israeli intelligence officials monitored the exercise and documented the steps Hamas planned to take after breaching Israeli territory and taking over military posts. The expected number of hostages, according to the document, was between 200 and 250 people.

"Israeli intelligence officials who monitored the exercise detailed in the document the next steps after breaching into Israel and taking over the posts, determining that the instruction is to hand over the captured soldiers to the company commanders. The expected number of hostages, it states, is between 200 and 250 people," Kan News reported.

This information, combined with a new and sophisticated security barrier completed two years before the attack, was believed to have made such an assault improbable. However, the barrier failed during the Hamas attack, highlighting a significant intelligence and security oversight.

The general staff investigation team is expected to present initial findings from this failure to the Chief of Staff in the coming weeks, as the country seeks to understand how such a lapse in security could occur despite having detailed advance knowledge of the enemy's plans.

Jerusalem Post

https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1803085270939541832

Iron Dome's new nemesis: The rising threat of Hezbollah's UAVs

Hezbollah's UAVs challenge Israel's air defenses daily, posing new threats from Lebanon. Experts caution that an unequivocal technological response is still a work in progress.

The complex reality in the skies of the north, in the shadow of the increasing threat of UAVs that Hezbollah launches daily from Lebanon, was reflected in the incident last Thursday near Shlomi. The fighters of the Sky Rider unit of the artillery corps launched a UAV to scan the area and provide tactical visual intelligence necessary for the forces on alert near the border. The Israeli aircraft, a Skylark UAV from Elbit Systems, was mistakenly detected by the Air Force's air defense system as a hostile UAV launched by Hezbollah. A Tamir missile from an Iron Dome battery turned it into a mass of fragments within seconds.

Since the start of the skirmish between the IDF and Hezbollah on October 8, more than 1,000 "flying objects" have been launched toward Israel. The number includes suicide drones and drones used to gather intelligence and identify Israeli weak points. About two and a half weeks ago, two Hezbollah UAVs penetrated about 70 kilometers deep into Israeli territory to one of the Air Force's most important and sensitive sites in the Lower Galilee, which serves as a base for the advanced observation system Sky Dew. One was detected and intercepted by a missile, but it served as a diversion, paving the way for an explosive UAV that advanced on a secret flight path, taking advantage of the topographical conditions until it reached the balloon.

The Sky Dew system, based on a huge observation balloon placed near the Golani junction for missile defense, features a high-powered radar from Elta Systems. It is designed to significantly improve the IDF's warning capabilities for cruise missiles and UAVs launched toward Israel from the east and north. However, despite the praise showered on it, Sky Dew did not provide a single warning. The system, previously estimated to cost hundreds of millions of shekels, faced operational difficulties and became a static target under long-term surveillance by Hezbollah. The pictures of the punctured balloon provided Hezbollah with a psychological victory, suggesting Israel's sensitive assets are exposed and vulnerable.



Hezbollah is increasing its attempts to attack UAVs and components of the air defense system in the north to disrupt its activities. This has led the IDF and the security establishment to recognize the need to invest in defending the air defense. Even at the beginning of the fighting, Hezbollah systematically targeted and destroyed cameras and observation systems deployed along the border fence to blind the Israeli military.

....

Part of the solution to the UAV problem will come with Rafael's Iron Beam defense system, designed to intercept air threats with a powerful laser beam, expected to be operational within the next year. "Even when Iron Beam is operational, it will not fully address the UAV threat due to its limited range and weather constraints," says a senior official.

Despite criticism, security sources report successes in intercepting UAVs, mainly through Iron Dome. "There is no modern air defense system that can handle this threat entirely," a source tells Calcalist. "The IDF's handling compared to other armies is reasonable, but the public is accustomed to the high interception rates of Iron Dome. With UAVs, the situation is different."

Hamas and Hezbollah’s drone warfare poses new threats to Israel's security - analysis

On the other hand, the IDF has made the Iron Dome the number one destroyer of UAVs in the IDF, and therefore, Hezbollah is making great efforts to locate the battery components to damage and destroy them.

"Still, the IDF's high level of readiness is for accurate and heavy ballistic missiles that can disable our national infrastructure. It can happen at any given moment," said an Air Force official.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah is eroding infrastructure on the Israeli side, damaging vital military installations, testing its own and the IDF's military capabilities, and preparing for what is to come.

Additional sources in the IDF, who criticized Israel's defensive policy against Hezbollah and the vigilance for the option of going on the attack, warned that Hezbollah is capable of launching a surprise attack using hundreds of drones at the same time as launching thousands of rockets a day on the Israeli home front. But then Hezbollah will drag Israel into a big, destructive, and deadly war on both sides of the border.

Even though the IDF was surprised by the attacks in the south and the north and the use of a variety of weapon systems by Hamas and Hezbollah, it seems that even now, the IDF, in general, and the Air Force, in particular, are firing in every direction to achieve different results on the ground in regards to air threats instead of pushing for one factor that will include the building of the drone force, an examination of weapons and technologies and their integration in war.

More Battle plans approved...


Top Israeli generals approve Lebanon offensive battle plans, army says

Unless the IDF has a time machine, going to assume the above photo caption date is a typo.

IDF Northern Command insignia: