Hezbollah Strikes Israeli Invasion Units With Fiber-Optic FPV Drones Near Merkava Tank

In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah used fiber-optic FPV drones to strike Israeli invasion units, in one incident where three Israeli occupation army soldiers near a tank heard a faint buzz before the drone appeared in their field of vision and exploded nearby, killing one soldier and wounding six others.

“Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a command headquarters of the Israeli enemy army in the town of Al-Bayyada with two attack drones and achieved a confirmed hit: statement 16 Islamic Resistance fighters targeted at 19:45 on Saturday 16-05-2026 the Ya‘ara barracks with a swarm of loitering drones: statement 15 Islamic Resistance fighters targeted at 20:05 on Saturday 16-05-2026 a Merkava tank in Al-Bayyada town with a guided missile, achieving a confirmed hit: statement 14 Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a command headquarters of the Israeli enemy army in the town of Al-Bayyada with two attack drones and achieved a confirmed hit: statement 16 Islamic Resistance fighters targeted at 19:45 on Saturday 16-05-2026 the Ya‘ara barracks with a swarm of loitering drones: statement 15 Islamic Resistance fighters targeted at 20:05 on Saturday 16-05-2026 a Merkava tank in Al-Bayyada town with a guided missile, achieving a confirmed hit: statement 14”

Al-Manar TV Lebanon

The Chronique de Palestine account says the one-minute video dated Friday, May 5 shows an FPV drone flying over an area controlled by the Israeli army and following an Israeli soldier moving near a Merkava tank in the recently established Israeli position at Nimr Al-Jamal opposite the Lebanese border town of Alma al-Shaab.

Chronique de Palestine

It adds that the live feed cut off abruptly when the drone exploded, and that images of FPV drones striking Israeli tanks, bulldozers, and soldiers are circulating more widely.

The same source frames the escalation as part of Hezbollah’s drone war along the Lebanese border, with the drones described as cheap, consumable, and hard to dodge because they are connected to operators by fiber-optic cables several kilometers long.

An Israeli military official is quoted as saying Israel recognizes the threat posed by drones and is striving to develop capabilities to detect and intercept these weapons, while a senior officer has been tasked with finding solutions.

While Chronique de Palestine describes Hezbollah’s drone tactics and Israel’s countermeasures, other outlets in the provided set focus on broader political and military claims tied to the same regional conflict.

In a saba.ye report, the Lebanese Resistance is described as targeting Israeli military vehicles, soldiers and a Merkava tank in the south, and also targeting an Israeli command headquarters, two bulldozers, three gatherings and a unit.

saba.ye

That same saba.ye item includes statements attributed to Araghchi that "We are not responsible for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and we did not trigger the war," and it also says the Mujahideen Movement condemns the Knesset's approval of creating special military courts to try the Palestinian elite forces.

Another saba.ye entry adds that "Major General Hatami: We will continue our mission to defend Iran's territorial integrity to the last drop of blood," placing the drone campaign within a wider set of declarations.

Separately, Al-Manar TV Lebanon reports that Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a command headquarters of the Israeli enemy army in the town of Al-Bayyada with two attack drones and achieved a confirmed hit, and it also reports a confirmed hit on a Merkava tank in Al-Bayyada town with a guided missile at 20:05 on Saturday 16-05-2026.

Chronique de Palestine says Israel has not managed to intercept these small drones despite its Iron Dome system, and it describes cases where soldiers tried to shoot them down with personal weapons.

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saba.ye

It also quotes Rob Lee, senior fellow in the Eurasia program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, saying that "Fiber-optic FPV drones cannot be jammed by electronic warfare, and they are harder to detect," and it links that to armies worldwide prioritizing countermeasures against drone tactics observed for the first time in Ukraine.

The same source says the drones’ estimated range of several tens of kilometers forces Israel to reassess the depth of its buffer zone, noting that earlier Israeli plans set the buffer zone at about 11 km.

In the Al-Manar TV Lebanon account, the reported sequence of attacks includes targeting the Ya‘ara barracks with a swarm of loitering drones at 19:45 on Saturday 16-05-2026 and targeting a Merkava tank in Al-Bayyada town at 20:05 on Saturday 16-05-2026, both framed as confirmed hits.

Together, the provided reports portray a continuing cycle of drone strikes and counter-development, with Chronique de Palestine describing Israeli intelligence units working on more effective alert models and advancing research on new drone-countering technologies.