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Heavy Lift Drones Are Driving Smuggling on the Israel-Egypt Border
(Ha'aretz) Oded Yaron - In the past, smuggling along the Egyptian border was mainly carried out by teams who would approach the border fence and toss packages over it or through breaches, where they were quickly picked up by smugglers on the Israeli side. To counter this, Israel restricted movement within hundreds of meters of the border and changed its rules of engagement to permit shooting at suspects. Over the past decade, smugglers began using small drones capable of carrying a few kg. of drugs to bypass the border fence. Last year, Israel identified the use of large agricultural drones capable of carrying dozens of kg. A drone carrying 13 assault rifles from Sinai into Israel was intercepted at the border in January. Since October, Israeli security forces have intercepted dozens of heavy lift drones along the Egyptian border. There are also dozens of drone smuggling attempts every week along the Jordanian border. Due to the deployment of counter-drone defenses, smugglers first send a small "scout drone" on a reconnaissance mission to detect where Israel's jamming systems are strongest.