A still from footage released by Hezbollah Military Media of an FPV drone attack on Israeli vehicles in Al-Bayada.
Hezbollah’s Al Ahed newspaper stated on April 29 that the group had “amassed a massive arsenal of” precision diving/attack drones, which it said had been modified “during the 15 months following the November 2024 ceasefire” between Israel and Lebanon to operate via fiber-optic links. Hezbollah-aligned outlets later explicitly framed this class of drones as fiber-optic first-person view (FPV) models.
The Al Ahed report did not state the precise size of this arsenal, but according to senior Israeli defense officials, Hezbollah’s south Lebanon drone unit allegedly has 100 specialized operators and has launched 160 drones at Israeli forces since early March, 90 of which were FPVs with a physical fiber-optic connection.
Al Ahed’s claim dovetails with several reports and Israeli claims from the 15-month ceasefire period that Hezbollah was focusing on drone procurement, production, and development—though none specified FPVs were involved until after the conflict resumed in early March. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) repeatedly claimed to have struck Hezbollah drone production and storage facilities and treated Hezbollah’s drone arm, especially Unit 127, as a major rebuilding priority for the group during the ceasefire period.
Al Ahed’s report also said that Hezbollah had modified the control links and video feeds of its FPVs to run through an ultra-thin, transparent, physical fiber-optic cable, rather than by radio, GPS, or wireless transmission. The cable, which the AP reported is “the width of a dental floss,” gradually unspools behind the FPV, sending signals and real-time, high-definition transmission back to the operator as it flies toward its intended target. This “renders them immune to jamming and prevents their signals from being tracked for the purposes of interception or downing,” while maintaining the operator’s ability to target precisely. The drones are immune to conventional RF/GPS jamming but remain vulnerable to kinetic interception, operator error, and cable breakage or tangling.
Al Ahed also claimed that Hezbollah has modified its FPVs to make them increasingly difficult to detect. Another report by the outlet stated that the drones are made from non-metallic materials, such as fiberglass and carbon fiber, to reduce their radar footprint, allowing them to be mistaken for background noise or natural objects.
The FPVs use small motors with a minimal heat signature, and the insulating materials from which they are manufactured limit heat leakage to the outer surface. Robert Tollast, a drone expert and researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told the AP that these developments allow a drone to fly low and creep up on its target. One Hezbollah FPV attack video from April 27 in Taybeh shows a drone doing exactly that—targeting six Israeli troops congregated in front of a Merkava main battle tank. The troops seemed unaware of the drone’s presence, even when it appeared to be at a very close distance. The footage then shows a follow-up FPV attack targeting the evacuation force. Another video, from an FPV attack dated May 1, showed a similar strike on unaware Israeli infantry.
The IDF claims that Iron Dome batteries have successfully intercepted 27 Hezbollah drones, most of which were FPVs with fiber-optic cables. The Israeli Air Force, which operates the Iron Dome system, moved several batteries to the frontier with Lebanon, while stressing that the Iron Beam system—which relies on lasers to down projectiles—was ineffective against Hezbollah’s FPVs.
The second Al Ahed report alleged that Hezbollah has improved upon the FPV models first developed by Chinese developers that were employed in the Ukrainian-Russian war. “These developments have made it possible to increase the destructiveness of the strikes,” the report claimed, “as some variants carry explosive heads ranging from 10 to 20 kilograms, and newer models can carry up to 35 kilograms, making them effective against armor.” Al Ahed also alleged that Hezbollah’s new variants have a range of “tens of kilometers, allowing the operator to strike from a safe distance.” The outlet’s initial report claimed that some of Hezbollah’s FPVs are “equipped with a battery capable of propelling the drone over a distance of 50 kilometers at high speed while carrying a payload of at least 7 kilograms.” It noted that this particular variant “is capable of destroying Iron Dome systems and disabling early warning devices.”
Israel, however, appears to judge the range of Hezbollah’s FPVs to be much shorter, with reports quoting Israeli military officials placing the distance they can travel at somewhere between 10 and 20 kilometers, while carrying approximately 6 kilograms of explosives.
The first Al Ahed report also claimed that Hezbollah had developed “several FPV variants […] some designed specifically to target infantry, while others were configured to strike heavy vehicles such as tanks and bulldozers.”
Known or claimed Hezbollah FPV attacks since March 2, 2026
Hezbollah has employed FPVs significantly against Israeli forces after renewing the conflict on March 2, 2026. Hezbollah’s Military Media often describes these attacks as employing “diving quadcopters.” However, it has not consistently used one term to describe FPV attacks in its claims, making it difficult to distinguish Hezbollah’s FPV attacks from attacks using other types of drones.
Regardless, the media ecosystem of Hezbollah and the broader Axis of Resistance, the Iran-led group of regional proxy militias, appears to have settled on “diving quadcopters” to describe the group’s FPV attacks. Based on claims using the term, an April 27 study by Union Center listed 73 such attacks between March 19 and April 25, 2026. Union Center is a research and information arm of the Tehran-based and pro-Axis of Resistance Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU). The US Treasury Department sanctioned IRTVU in 2020 “for being owned or controlled by the IRGC-QF [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Qods Force].”
Hezbollah’s military media first released footage of an apparent FPV attack on March 26, presumably recorded on an earlier date, with drones striking an IDF Namer armored personnel carrier (APC) and a Merkava tank in Taybeh in southern Lebanon. Another video, released the same day, showed an apparent FPV crossing the Blue Line that divides Lebanon and Israel and striking the rear of a Merkava tank inside Israel.
Hezbollah subsequently claimed several attacks against Israeli forces that used “diving quadcopters” and released several snippets of attack footage. In addition to the group’s chosen terminology, the precise nature of the strikes also suggested the drones were FPVs.
Why FPVs?
Per Lebanese reports, Hezbollah’s emphasis on drones owes to these munitions being easier to produce and more effective than missiles. The group has been under significant financial and security constraints since November 27, 2024, the date the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire took effect. These challenges were compounded by the downfall of the Bashar al Assad regime in Syria on December 8, 2024, which shut off a significant supply route and source of other support. In addition, Israel’s subsequent persistent strikes on Hezbollah’s assets and personnel in Lebanon and visibility into arms imported by the group through Lebanon’s major entry points have added to these constraints.
Unlike other weapons, drones can be assembled locally using spare parts; components that are inherently harder to detect in transit and can be acquired in Lebanon or from China. Drones are also cheap to manufacture. An Israeli military official told the AP that “Israel believes the drones are made locally and are easy to produce—requiring little more than an off-the-shelf drone, a small amount of explosives, and transparent wire that is readily available on the consumer market.” Considering Hezbollah’s post-November financial straits, these weapons also provide the group the most return on investment.
Hezbollah readily admits the IDF’s technological and conventional superiority, and the group lacks both the budget and the military production infrastructure to develop equally sophisticated means of countering the Israelis. So, it has traditionally relied on cheap methods capable of exploiting Israeli vulnerabilities. A separate April 29 Al Ahed report described Hezbollah’s longstanding modus operandi of confronting the more powerful IDF: “Whenever Israel’s technological capabilities advance, they widen the gap of its vulnerability to small, agile, and uncontainable threats.” Hezbollah’s FPVs were developed as a direct response to the “effectiveness of Israeli electronic warfare systems in neutralizing radio signals” and the ability to counter most drones operated via those signals.
An added benefit of the new weapon for Hezbollah is that Israel seems to have been caught off guard by the emergence of the FPV threat. A Times of Israel analysis argued that this oversight had placed Israel’s entire Lebanon buffer-zone strategy at risk. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel is now seeking solutions to the threat, but that “will take time.” In the interim, Israel is relying on stopgap measures. Defensively, these include improvised nets, AI-driven rifle-mounted fire-control sights designed to improve small-arms engagements against drones, and interceptor drones. On the offensive side, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir instructed Northern Command and the Israeli Air Force to target Hezbollah’s drone production, operators, and supply chain.
A dramatization of an FPV attack on Israeli troops published by Hezbollah Military Media.
FPVs also provide a propaganda benefit for Hezbollah. The group is leveraging the attacks in an attempt to have a simultaneously negative impact on Israeli public and military morale and a positive one for Hezbollah.
A report in the pro-Hezbollah Al Mayadeen news channel stressed this agenda:
The psychological dimension is no less significant in this context. Scenes depicting soldiers attempting to shoot down small drones using small arms are utilized in Israeli media as evidence of a disconnect between expectations and reality—specifically, an advanced “army” confronting a rudimentary threat with relatively primitive tools. Furthermore, the self-recording and live-streaming capabilities inherent to these aerial vehicles introduce a sensitive media dimension, as they significantly narrow the margin for denial or for controlling the military narrative.