The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah this week struck a military post in northern Israel using a drone that fired two missiles. The attack wounded three soldiers, one of them seriously.

Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past seven months, but the one on Thursday appears to have been the first successful missile airstrike it has launched from within Israeli airspace.

The Thursday afternoon attack by a drone carrying missiles came just days after Hezbollah launched three anti-tank guided missiles at an Israeli military post that controlled an IDF observation balloon, an attack that also killed an Israeli father of three and injured five soldiers. They released camera footage afterward to show they had hit their mark. Hours later, the IDF confirmed that the spy balloon had been shot down over Lebanon.

The night before, Hezbollah had carried out its deepest attack in Israel to date using explosive drones to strike at a base in Ilaniya near the city of Tiveria about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Lebanon border. One of the drones damaged an Air Force base that houses and operates the Sky Dew aerostat, a high-altitude observation balloon.

Hezbollah’s use of more advanced weaponry, including drones capable of firing missiles, explosive drones and the small type of guided missile known as Almas, or Diamond, that was used to attack the base controlling the balloon has raised alarms within the Israeli security establishment.

“Hezbollah has been escalating the situation in the north,” said IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “They’ve been firing more and more.”

In adapting its attacks, Hezbollah has also managed to reduce the number of its terrorists lost compared with the early weeks of its attacks. The group has lost more than 250 terrorists so far, compared with 15 Israeli troops since Hezbollah began launching attacks on Israel a day after the brutal Hamas assault on October 7.

According to a count by The Associated Press, Hezbollah lost 47 terrorists in October and 35 in November, compared with 20 in April and 12 so far this month.

The official familiar with the group’s operations said Hezbollah had reduced the number of terrorists along the border areas to bring down the number of casualties. While Hezbollah continues to fire Russian-made anti-tank Kornet missiles from areas close to the border, it has also shifted to firing drones and other types of rockets with heavy warheads — including Almas as well as Falaq and Burkan rockets — from areas several kilometers (miles) from the border.

Over the weekend, Hezbollah said it had launched a new rocket with a heavy warhead named Jihad Mughniyeh after a senior terrorist who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on southern Syria in 2015.

Eva J. Koulouriotis, a political analyst specializing in the Middle East and jihadi groups wrote on the social media platform X that Hezbollah’s recent escalation likely has several goals, including raising the ceiling of the group’s demands in any future negotiations for a border deal, as well as raising military pressure on Israel’s military in light of the preparations for the battle in Rafah.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem & AP)