“The drone threat has become a nightmare for the fighters on the ground,” a senior IDF official told TWZ.
Senior IDF official on the FPV threat
The senior IDF official who spoke to TWZ described a rapidly evolving attack profile that has forced frontline troops to improvise. According to that official, Hezbollah’s use of fiber‑optic guidance and newly fielded thermal cameras on first‑person‑view (FPV) kamikaze drones “creates an extraordinary level of deterrence against the forces operating inside Lebanon and along the border.” The official said the effect is immediate: “The forces are essentially static,” and “They cannot advance toward the drone‑launch areas, nor can they effectively target the drone logistics and operational chain extending through the Beqaa Valley, Tyre, Sidon, and even Beirut.”
Fishing nets from Tiberias, Akko and Haifa
With conventional countermeasures limited, some IDF troops have begun buying fishing nets from Israeli fishermen. “Indeed, IDF soldiers are equipping themselves with fishing nets, most of which are being purchased in the city of Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee,” the senior official told TWZ. Troops are also procuring nets from fishermen at Akko and Haifa on the Mediterranean, the official added.
Those nets are being hung in front of bases and tanks so the drones can become entangled or be forced to detonate at a safer distance from personnel and equipment. The practice was first reported by Israel’s KAN public broadcasting network and highlighted by TWZ as an improvised, field‑level countermeasure alongside planned IDF procurements.
IDF procurement and distributed netting
Israel’s military has distributed protective netting already: I24 News reported roughly 158,000 square meters have been sent to units in the field. The army is “in the process of acquiring an additional roughly two million square feet of netting,” I24 News added, and the total area ordered was described as equivalent to roughly 20 football fields. Even so, the rapid expansion of operations into southern Lebanon means the available netting may not cover all needs—hence some soldiers’ turn to commercial fishing nets to supplement official supplies.
Hezbollah’s FPV tactics: fiber‑optic guidance and thermal cameras
TWZ and posted videos show Hezbollah adapting FPV drones in two key ways. First, an increasing percentage of attacks use fiber‑optic cables for guidance, a measure the article says helps mitigate the effects of electronic warfare jamming and the line‑of‑sight limitations of radio control. Second, the group has begun fitting FPV munitions with thermal cameras so they can be deployed in night attacks; one social‑media post cited in the story called the system a “THERMAL Ababil” and attributed a strike in Al‑Bayada that used a thermal sight.
Video evidence of fiber‑optic strikes cited by TWZ includes attacks that reportedly hit two “Merkava” Mk.4 tanks, a D9 Caterpillar armored bulldozer, and what appears to be a “Namer” heavy IFV equipped with a turret mounting a 30 mm Bushmaster Mk 2 cannon. The senior IDF official argued these adaptations “severely restrict [our] movement both during the day and at night” and are driving calls within the army to change doctrine toward “covert and concealed activity.”
Precedent from Ukraine and field improvisation
The use of netting as a passive countermeasure is not new: TWZ notes the approach was first employed in Ukraine as FPV drones proliferated there. One early example cited shows Russian forces erecting a 2‑km mesh tunnel along a road between Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar to protect equipment and personnel from drone attack. Since the war in Ukraine began, troops on several fronts have resorted to ad‑hoc solutions—from stacking logs on vehicles to welding added layers of steel into so‑called “turtle tanks.” The IDF itself has been testing folded anti‑drone net installations on vehicles, and some units are now supplementing official hardware with fishing nets to fill gaps in the field.
What this means for the IDF, Israeli fishermen, and the political‑security cabinet
- IDF units: Expect continued improvisation at the tactical edge as soldiers use commercial nets to protect positions and vehicles until formal netting stocks and new doctrines scale to operational needs. The senior IDF official said, “Our operational doctrine must change.”
- Israeli fishermen and local suppliers: Fishermen in Tiberias, Akko and Haifa are now a source of rapidly deployable material—commercial nets that are being repurposed for battlefield protection.
- Political‑security cabinet and national leadership: The senior official told TWZ that “the political‑security cabinet, and more specifically [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, is pushing for overt operations” even as operational freedom is said to be constrained by commitments tied to “[U.S. President Donald] Trump,” creating the Catch‑22 the official warned about.
The immediate picture is one of expedient adaptation: nets—whether military‑grade or pulled from fishing boats—are serving as blunt but practical barriers against a specific, rapidly evolving weapon set. Whether those stopgaps will be enough as FPV systems gain fiber‑optic and thermal capabilities, and as Israel deepens operations in southern Lebanon, remains the central operational question posed by the senior IDF official and the inventory figures reported by I24 News.
