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In apparent world first, IDF deployed drone swarms in Gaza fighting
Military used ‘flocks’ of small aircraft, all communicating with each other, to locate targets, direct airstrikes, highlighting advances in artificial intelligence-driven combat
By Judah Ari Gross 10 July 2021, 6:29 pm
Israeli military drones fly in formation in an undated photograph. (Israel Defense Forces)
Mass swarms of dozens or hundreds of drones guided by artificial intelligence are widely considering to be one of the more worrying weapons making their way into the modern battlefield, one with the potential to be far cheaper and thus more available to non-state actors than other advanced munitions.
The world saw a taste of that emerging military technology, albeit a limited one, in May during the 11-day conflict between Israel and terror groups in Gaza, when the Israel Defense Forces used flocks of drones over the Strip to spot rocket launches by Hamas and attack those sites in what appears to be one of the first significant, publicly acknowledged real-world use of the concept.
The military’s use of drones in this way was initially kept classified during the fighting, but has since been permitted to be published in part.
During the fighting, the IDF struggled to prevent the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups from launching rockets and mortar shells into Israel. By the end of the conflict, over 4,000 projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip, killing several people in Israel, injuring scores more and regularly sending hundreds of thousands of Israelis to bomb shelters for nearly two weeks.
In a bid to prevent these attacks, the military worked to develop new methods of locating launchpads, which Hamas and Islamic Jihad had buried and hidden throughout the Gaza Strip, in schoolyards, home gardens and otherwise deep within civilian areas. For the first time, the IDF’s artificial intelligence capabilities were brought to bear on the issue, helping human analysts interpret a vast amount of satellite and aerial surveillance imagery to locate the launchpads, some of which were built to be used multiple times. This led Israeli Military Intelligence to declare the Gaza campaign the world’s “first AI war.”
In one use of artificial intelligence, the Israeli military deployed small flocks of quadcopter drones over the southern Gaza Strip with each device monitoring a specific patch of land, The Times of Israel learned at the time. When a rocket or mortar launch was detected, other armed aircraft or ground-based units attacked the source of the fire.
According to the Walla news site, the drone swarms were used dozens of times during the fighting by an until-now classified company of the Paratroopers Brigade, based on concepts developed by the IDF’s experimental Ghost Unit, which is tasked with trying out and creating new tactics and fighting styles for the military.
Israeli military drones fly in formation in an undated photograph. (Israel Defense Forces)
“After a year of preparation and exercises, the situation came and the aerial detection system is able to find the enemy and destroy it and bring the operational achievement we are looking for,” the company commander, who for security reasons can only be identified by his rank and first Hebrew initial, Maj. “Mem,” told the outlet.
“We conducted more than 30 sorties with the drone swarms, which collected precise intelligence and assisted other drones to carry out attacks on the targets,” he said.
During the 11-day campaign, dubbed Operation Guardian of the Walls, Mem’s unit worked with the Elbit defense contractor, which manufactured the drones, and other units within the IDF to refine its capabilities in real time.
According to Mem, while the first use of his unit was in Gaza, that was more of a trial run for the real threat they are preparing for: Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is considered a far more powerful foe than Hamas.
“We’re not resting on our laurels. We are already looking northward and preparing for operations in the next war,” he said.
The military also reportedly plans to expand the use of this technology to other ground units in the future.
However, Israeli drone expert Tal Inbar said it was not clear if these were truly the first attacks by a drone swarm in the world, as has been claimed in media reports in recent days, but this was nevertheless a significant milestone in the use of the technology.
