The two terrorists riding a motorcycle a few weeks ago in southern Lebanon never saw it coming. As they sped along at about 100 kph (62 mph), with their helmets on and the engine roaring, they also could not hear the buzz of the drone blades closing in on them from behind. Video footage of the incident shows the drone quickly catching up with the motorcycle, then maneuvering to hit it directly and explode. The two terrorists did not stand a chance.
I watched the footage in the office of Lt. Col. O., commander of Yiftach, the IDF Development Unit, which is part of the Technological Brigade in the Technology and Logistics Directorate and operates under the guidance of the Ground Forces' Weapons Department. That dry collection of names conceals a shrewd and advanced military body, the IDF equivalent, if you will, of Q, the gadget genius from the James Bond films.
Video: Terrorists eliminated while trying to flee on a motorcycle /// Video: IDF Spokesperson's Unit
Yiftach was founded in 1958 by David Leskov, an Israeli engineer and inventor who won three Israel Defense Prizes. Leskov, who held the title of the world's oldest soldier, died a few months after his discharge from the IDF at the age of 85. He gathered around him a group of talented engineers who worked on military inventions, mainly in the field of rockets. Models of those rockets are still on display at Yiftach's base, alongside a portrait of Leskov that adorns one of the walls.
"Ultimately, there isn't much difference," the unit's current commander, Lt. Col. O., says with a smile as we walk through the unit. "In the 1950s, they developed rockets, and today we develop drones. In the end, it's a bomb that knows how to fly."
The use of attack drones on the battlefield began gaining momentum, in every sense of the word, during the Russia-Ukraine war. Yiftach personnel watched the videos posted online from that war, "but only on Oct. 7 did we understand that the IDF had no broad solution in the field of attack drones," O. admits. "And then we were called to the flag."
So it was only after the war began that Yiftach started thinking about a solution that would allow attack drones to be used widely, rather than on a boutique scale as in the past. To close the gap that had already opened with the futuristic battlefield, the unit had to move quickly. The first stop was the development lab, which operates out of a distinctly unimpressive room not far from the commander's office.
There is a major dissonance between Yiftach's aging buildings and what is happening inside them. This is, in effect, a kind of technological hub, a startup in olive-green uniform, where new weapons are developed and manufactured for soldiers on the front lines who need them right now.
Here, in the development lab, the idea began to take flight: giving infantry battalions a strike capability that does not rely on assistance from the Israeli Air Force, a tank shell or artillery fire. "If in the past a company commander had to request support from an attack helicopter, a Zik UAV or artillery, today he has an organic aerial strike capability using a drone," T. explains. "But beyond the independence this gives the force in the field, we also understand that there is such a thing as munition economics. In the end, firing shoulder-launched missiles and tank shells costs a lot of money, and a cheaper solution has to be provided."
"Can build you a explosive drone in an hour"
That solution is a relatively simple FPV drone, made up of a frame, four motors, a flight controller and a battery, which has been given the military name "Atalef," Hebrew for "bat." It is a cheap, agile tool that weighs just 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) but can carry a warhead several times heavier. Beyond its light weight, it is also simple to operate, making it extremely useful on the battlefield. In the videos I watched in O.'s office, the unit commander showed me how these Atalef drones exploded inside homes in Gaza, on vehicles in Lebanon and in other targets.
"Today," he says, "any force heading out for maneuver does not move before taking several Atalefs with it."
I ask the unit commander what he thinks of his counterparts in Hezbollah, those who outpaced the IDF with fiber-optic drones that are now wreaking havoc in southern Lebanon.
"The difference between us and them is that we are bound by regulation and standards," he answers. "At the end of the day, it's not a problem to go on AliExpress, buy a drone and attach a mortar shell to it. If I didn't have to meet certain standards, I can build you a explosive drone right outside in an hour. Hezbollah has no problem losing a fighter or two during the development process. With us, it doesn't work that way."
