The UAV Incursion: Are Gas Rigs The Next Target?

Experts are assessing that Hezbollah’s success in introducing a UAV into Israel’s airspace can testify to the organization’s next attack directions.

The flight of the Iranian UAV launched by Hezbollah has turned the issue of defending gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea into a very pressing issue, say Israeli experts. Thus far, it appears that the primary threat to drilling rigs and future production rigs might come from the sea, in the form of explosive boats or a boat carrying armed terrorists.

Now, according to the experts, Hezbollah’s success in flying a UAV along Israel’s coast and then into the country’s airspace completely changes things. Some of the experts hold the opinion that the entire operation was mostly intended to examine the ability for early detection of UAVs. This was revealed to be lacking, since the UAV entered Israel’s airspace and flew within it for approximately half an hour.

In the past, Hassan Nasrallah has voiced threats directed at Israel’s gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea. It seems that the UAVs he received from Iran were not intended for intelligence purposes, since he could obtain what he received from this UAV through Google Earth. One of the experts said that Hezbollah has no need for tactical intelligence, since its main weapons are rockets, which are mostly statistic weapons that do not require real-time intelligence information of the kind supplied by advanced UAVs.

According to the expert, the need for UAVs is for the purpose of harassing and attacking a large target such as a drilling or production rig. The new situation will required the diversion of many additional measures towards protecting the gas reserves in Israel's economic waters.

It seems that the initial reinforcement will be in the detection system, which will have to be better adapted for improved detection of targets with a small radar signature. According to the experts, this refers to both radars as well as other sensors that can assist in early detection.