On April 26, one Israeli soldier and six others were wounded in a drone attack in Al-Taybeh in southern Lebanon. The weapon used in the attack, launched by Hezbollah guerillas, sent a shock wave through Israeli forces: it was a fiber optic-guided drone, of the type now widely used on the battlefield in Ukraine. The attack has left Israeli forces scrambling to come up with an adequate defense.
It turns out that Hezbollah didn’t need particular ingenuity to obtain these drones. They can be purchased for less than five dollars from AliExpress e-commerce site. These wire-guided drones operate in a fundamentally different way from traditional versions that rely on radio waves or satellites. They are linked to the controller via a very thin fiber-optic wire, wound on a spool mounted on the drone’s body that gradually unwinds during flight.
This technology provides immunity against jamming, as commands and video imagery are transmitted via a physical wire rather than through the air. This blocks Israeli jamming and detection systems from tracking and downing these aircraft. Another advantage of these drones is their ability to fly in rugged terrain and behind geographical obstacles that might block wireless signals, while the fiber optics provide high-resolution images to the operator.
The fiber-optic spool alone can reach a range of up to fifty kilometers. According to Israeli media estimates, Hezbollah mostly uses ranges between ten and twenty kilometers. On AliExpress and other sites, a ten-kilometer spool of these optical fibers costs approximately $168. It appears that Hezbollah has managed to bring in hundreds of these drones and spools through smuggling channels at the Port of Beirut and other ports and customs points in Lebanon. It is also likely that many of these drones, or even individual fiber-optic spools, entered legally through Lebanese customs in past years due to the lack of common military use for this type of device.
A source familiar with Lebanese Customs mechanisms told Alhurra that these drones and spools could have entered in shipping containers for toys, electrical tools, or even telecommunications and internet equipment. Customs personnel have no knowledge of the uses for this type of spool, and there are no specific circulars preventing their entry, which enables them to be imported separately from the drones themselves. (The Lebanese Army requires conditions and licenses for importing drones for non-civilian use into Lebanon.)
Confusion often arises regarding these types of “dual-use” goods—those with both civilian and military applications. In the past, the entry of tons of ammonium nitrate for agricultural use and its storage in the Port of Beirut led to the massive explosion on August 4, 2020. Reports at the time stated that Hezbollah and the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad were using quantities of nitrate in the barrel bombs used to shell the Syrian people. The dual-use issue is particularly sensitive, considering that these fiber-optic guided drones could also be used in internal assassinations, making them a domestic security challenge.
In December 2024, Lebanese authorities at the Port of Tripoli seized four drones arriving from China under a shell company. Capable of carrying 14 kilograms of explosives, these drones highlighted the ease with which “dual-use” technology enters the country. Investigations by Alhurra into Lebanese Customs data further revealed a suspicious surge in fiber-optic imports, which jumped from 83,000 tons in 2023 to 146,000 tons in 2024. Since a 10km spool for a drone weigh only 2kg, this massive increase during a time of conflict suggests a concerted effort by Hezbollah to bypass electronic warfare.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Radio recently revealed an intelligence document distributed a year ago, in May 2025, which warned of the threat posed by suicide drones relying on fiber optics. The document detailed existing vulnerabilities and the urgent need to develop defensive and offensive countermeasures. According to IDF estimates, this was the same period during which Hezbollah was preparing to resume fighting against Israel, following severe strikes that had eliminated its security leadership and a significant portion of its military infrastructure. However, over the past two months—following the resumption of hostilities between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other—it has become clear that the Lebanese party was preparing for a war of attrition against the Israeli army using these wire-guided fiber-optic drones.
Rami Al Amine
Rami Al-Amin is a Lebanese writer and correspondent for MBN covering political, social and cultural developments across the Middle East. He produces and presents the satirical critique segment Bitter Sweet, which examines current events through a critical lens. He holds a master’s degree in Islamic-Christian Relations from Saint Joseph University in Beirut. He is the author of Ya Ali, We Are No Longer the People of the South, a political booklet on Hezbollah, and The Two Mourners, a book on the history of Beirut’s Martyrs’ Statue.
