Iran is increasingly using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in its war with Middle East rivals. The threat is prompting grave concern among senior Israeli defense officials, which they have recently taken to airing in public quite often.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz devoted his speech to the drone menace at a Reichman University security conference Nov. 23, revealing that Iran tried to deliver explosives in February 2018 from Syria to West Bank terrorists using a drone. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also referred to the issue in his September address to the UN General Assembly. “Just this year, Iran made operational a new deadly terror unit, a startup: swarms of killer UAVs armed with lethal weapons that can attack any place any time,” he said. Bennett added that Iran had already carried out drone attacks against Saudi Arabia, US targets in Iraq and civilian ships, and plans “to blanket the skies of the Middle East with this lethal force.”

Iranian drones made their debut international performance in September 2019 when they were launched along with cruise missiles at Saudi oil fields some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away. The strike caused heavy damage to an Aramco facility and disrupted Saudi oil exports for many months. Since then, Iran has increased its deployment of these crafts, making headlines yet again when they launched UAVs at the Israeli-operated Mercer Street oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman this past July, killing two crew members.

Two additional drone strikes in recent weeks have been attributed to Iran. The first was an attack in October on Al-Tanf US military outpost in eastern Syria, which did not cause casualties after a “friendly country” (Israel, according to foreign news reports) conveyed advance warning to the United States, enabling it to vacate the facility. A second attack occurred Nov. 7 with an explosives-carrying drone crashing into the home of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. He escaped unharmed, but six of his guards were injured. Just this past weekend, Houthi rebels said they launched 14 UAVs from Yemen at Saudi Aramco refineries and King Abdullah International Airport in Jeddah.