Deadly Delivery – Mishpacha Magazine

A drone-borne invasion across Israel’s frontiers is flooding the Negev with heavy weaponry

Rosh Hashanah 5786. While most Israelis are returning from shul and preparing their seudos, something entirely different is happening in Kadesh Barnea, a yishuv on the Egyptian border. Anan Sion, the local council head, sits on his porch, and it’s hard to believe that the scene he is watching is unfolding in sovereign Israeli territory: dozens of weapon-laden drones flying past, one after another. The notification system recently installed on his phone keeps chirping — warning after warning. Dozens of drone smuggling runs are logged that night alone, and over the course of the Yom Tov, 550 drone crossings take place.

“I’m sitting on the porch and drones are passing over my head,” Sion later told a hearing of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “One might reach a kindergarten, and could drop a bomb on it. The capability exists and it’s extremely dangerous. I live in constant fear.”

This is only the tip of a much larger, darker story that the security establishment knows about and quietly discusses behind closed doors — but has so far avoided confronting properly. While Israel is absorbed in fighting Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in the south, and the threat of Iranian missiles, a different danger is quietly lurking under the radar. This threat does not originate across a border; it’s developing inside the country, and has the potential to make October 7 look like a dress rehearsal for a much larger slaughter.

This is the story of three converging threat lines: an unprecedented flood of weapons flowing into Israel from all directions; a civilian population that is increasingly arming itself in preparation for a “doomsday moment”; and a dramatic escalation in terrorist capabilities in Judea and Samaria. When those three threads are tied together the picture looks grim: The state is losing control of wide swaths of its sovereign territory.

And this time, unlike October 7, no one can say they weren’t warned. The alerts are all flashing — but the Tequila elite counterterrorism units have not yet been mobilized.

The Flood

In the three months between July and September 2025 alone, there were 896 documented drone smuggling runs over the Egyptian border into Israel. That’s nearly double the tally for the same period last year, which stood at 464 runs. Data going further back highlights how disturbing the current situation is: In the first half of 2024 there were only 104 recorded runs. The conclusion is simple — and frightening: The phenomenon is exploding at an exponential rate.

“We started last year with five smuggling runs a month,” Anan Sion recounts. “Two months later, it rose to 90. On Rosh Hashanah there were 550 runs in three days. As they gain strength, their power grows. They can buy advanced equipment. They have radios, thermal devices — everything they need. It’s a whole system that moves a lot of money.”

Eran Doron, head of the Ramat HaNegev regional council, adds a disturbing detail: These drones are capable of carrying dozens of kilograms of weaponry. Not cigarettes, not narcotics — LAWs (anti-tank missiles), machine guns, heavy weapons.

“Drones fly over our communities and land in testing areas around Revivim, Retamim, and Bir Hadaj,” he says. “Almost every night you hear machine-gun fire for hours. Day after day.”

But the Egyptian border is only one part of the picture. A troubling report from the Rifman Institute for Development of the Negev, led by Hagai Reznik, paints an even more shocking picture. According to the report, submitted to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, there are currently more than 100,000 illegal firearms in the Negev. Let that sink in: one hundred thousand weapons. That is the equivalent to the armament of roughly 50 infantry brigades — a staggering amount of firepower outside state control.

And those weapons are not just collecting dust. They are active, circulating, being traded. Since October 2023 there has been a 71 percent surge in the number of illegal weapons in the Negev. Alongside the massive smuggling, a whole market has emerged for short-term weapons rentals. An M16 assault rifle rents for about NIS 500 a day; bullets cost around NIS 7 apiece. A MAG machine gun? NIS 1,000 a day, NIS 12 per round. It is a massive, organized economic infrastructure that functions like a business.

“You don’t rent a MAG to steal cigarettes,” Anan Sion warns, his voice trembling slightly. “When you bring in a MAG, it means you intend to seize a settlement. Four MAGs and you take Moshav Nevatim. We must define this as terrorism.”

He isn’t exaggerating. The security establishment understands all too well what such an arsenal implies. “One MAG in place can neutralize an air squadron — you don’t need the Iranians,” Sion warned the Knesset.

There’s another border bleeding weapons into Israel: the eastern border. Security assessments estimate that more than 4,000 people have infiltrated into Israel through the Jordanian border in 2024 alone — roughly 600 people a month, some 20 per day. A significant number of those are involved in smuggling weapons, drugs, and arms. Estimates suggest that the numbers rose this year despite an increased security presence on the border.

When I visited a patrol along the border a few months ago, Lieutenant-Colonel D., commander of the battalion assigned to the sector, told me: “Our main challenge here is the smuggling. This place has become a paradise for smugglers and sometimes there are dozens of runs every day. The Iranians are funneling a lot of weapons here, intended for Israeli Arabs. They equip them with quality, standardized armaments — much of which is smuggled through the Jordanian border.”

Here’s how it works: Drugs are significantly more expensive in Jordan than in Israel, so smuggling is often two-way.

“There are cells that take drugs to Jordan, others that bring weapons to Israel, and sometimes the same cell simply goes back and forth — bringing drugs to Jordan and returning with weapons,” Lt.-Col. D. explained.

“One of the most significant tools that have gone into use recently is drones. This is an issue that the IDF and the Israel Police have not yet found a solution for. These are large agricultural drones that can carry relatively heavy loads, and which are harder to detect. The smugglers load them with weapons or drugs and send them up. If in the past, it was necessary to physically have at least two cells approach the fence to exchange loads, today the people can hide miles away while flying a drone over the border to drop and pick up the loads in a safe place.

“It’s rampant,” he adds. “There are smuggling runs both in this area and more to the north, in the direction of Beit She’an. On the Egyptian border as well we are seeing lots of smuggling, despite the new barrier that was erected there,” Lt.-Col. D. says, and the frustration in his voice is evident. “Sometimes a single smuggler here in Israel does it all: He sends up a drone loaded with drugs, and when the drone gets to Jordan, a cell is waiting there to unload the drugs and to load it with weapons. Then the drone gets sent back to the same smuggler waiting on the Israeli side. They communicate using simple phones or radio frequencies.”

Most of the smugglers are Bedouin Negev residents who are familiar with every crevice and rock in the area. They’re equipped with high-mobility jeeps and move easily across the terrain. Lately, they’ve become extremely skilled at flying drones in a way that makes detecting them very difficult.

“Existing solutions to the drone problem don’t really meet the operational need. Just in the five weeks we’ve been here, smuggling has happened every night and I believe goods worth tens of millions of dollars passed through in that time,” adds Lt.-Col. D.

The eastern border situation is especially concerning because of developments happening on the other side. In April 2025, Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate announced it had foiled plans to “undermine national security and create chaos in the country.” They arrested 16 suspects from four Hamas cells; some had rockets with a 3–5 km range, others were involved with UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and weapons. Weapon storage facilities were found, containing rocket-making lathes and raw materials sufficient to produce 300 missiles.

Most importantly, some suspects admitted to being trained in Lebanon. The circle closes: Iran operates infrastructures via Jordan, trains operatives in Lebanon, and sends them with equipment and weapons into Israel through the eastern border.

“Iran’s next strategic goal is to spark an uprising in Judea and Samaria and to put pressure on Israel’s eastern border,” a senior Israeli source says. “We are seeing a significant strengthening of Iran’s footprint inside the Hashemite Kingdom. It’s clear to everyone this didn’t happen in a vacuum. After losing their Syrian proxy, Iran is not giving up on the rings of fire around Israel.”

Hagai Reznik of the Rifman Institute leaves no room for doubt: “The next October 7 will erupt from the Negev. The region is filling up with weapons, there’s rampant lawlessness, and the State seems to be turning a blind eye. If the government doesn’t wake up now, in a few years we won’t be able to control what’s happening here. This is not only a security threat; it’s a threat to Israeli sovereignty.”

Weapons are flowing from north, south and east. The state is losing control of its borders, and the caches are growing at a dizzying pace. But the troubling question is: Why all this weaponry? Who is arming — and for what?

Doomsday

An indictment was filed about two weeks ago against Obada Taha, who supplied the weapons and trained one of the terrorists responsible for the murderous attack at the Ramot junction. It reveals an extremely disturbing detail: Obada Taha wasn’t a classic terrorist. He wasn’t a member of an organized group; he hadn’t undergone formal training or planned an attack.

Nearly a decade ago, in early 2017, Taha purchased a handgun. He told Shin Bet investigators that he had bought the gun as part of preparations for the “Doomsday” — a date on which, he is quoted in the indictment, “an attack will begin against the Jews in Judea and Samaria in particular, and the State of Israel in general.” In the meantime, he got trained and then trained his cousin, and when an opportunity arose to carry out an attack, he gave the weapon to his cousin. So what will he do on Doomsday? By then he’ll figure out how to get newer, better weapons from the hundreds of thousands of arms flowing into the territories.

This incident alone ought to wake the sleepiest generals. A Palestinian testifying that he bought weapons nearly a decade ago, long before October 7 —as part of his preparations for “Doomsday,” the big assault on the Jews. Not an organizationally affiliated operative, but an ideologically murderous individual.

The term “Doomsday” is not new in Palestinian discourse; it appears in religious, national, and political contexts. But when it is heard from a resident of East Jerusalem, who appears to be a regular civilian, the term takes on a stark and dangerous meaning: There is a specific day in the future when all these weapons that have been secretly amassed will come out of hiding.

Now, connect that to the massive smuggling from the Egyptian and Jordanian borders. Connect it to the (at least) 100,000 weapons already in the Negev. Connect it to the booming weapons-rental market, to machine guns firing nightly in testing areas, to drones flying over kindergartens. There’s a picture that comes together: This is not about lone terrorists planning isolated attacks. This is about people of all kinds — seemingly ordinary civilians — arming themselves and waiting.

Terminology Is Changing

In this context, the classic Israeli distinction between “Bedouin in the Negev” and “West Bank Arabs” does a grave disservice to the scale of the threat. “Most Bedouin are law-abiding and seek a normal life,” Hagai Reznik stresses, “but extremist elements exploit the vacuum of authority to deepen the Negev’s ties to Gaza and Judea and Samaria.” In his report to the Knesset he details that in the last decade, members of the Bedouin diaspora were involved in lethal attacks against Israel, and there were nine cases of arrests and indictments for specializing in, planning, financing, or assisting terrorist organizations. “This data indicates a small but dangerous radical core,” Reznik writes.

A small core, but with access to enormous firepower.

Another thing happening beneath the surface that the security establishment is watching with growing concern is the change in identity terminology from “Bedouin in the Negev” to “Arab Negev residents.” This isn’t mere semantics. It reflects an identity transformation. The connection to the broader Palestinian sphere is strengthening — through cross-region marriages, the Palestinian education of teachers, and growing cultural and political affinity with Judea and Samaria and Gaza.

Reznik’s report warns that extremist groups are deepening ties between the Negev and both Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Islamic forces are growing stronger in the vacuum left by government neglect. More than 130,000 people live in the dispersed communities or semi-dispersed areas of the Negev without effective government control or real territorial presence.

At the same time, Judea and Samaria show a similar picture. Central Command analysts say they see “suspicious signs” of escalating terrorism in the area. The fear isn’t a single large attack — it’s something else entirely: a sequence of incidents that would push the Palestinian street into protests and widespread unrest across cities, leading to an uncoordinated popular uprising erupting simultaneously in many locations.

Unlike previous intifadas, there’s a new element in the equation: massive quantities of weapons. Not stones, not Molotov cocktails. Quality armaments — machine guns, rifles, handguns, grenades, quietly stockpiled and waiting to be used.

During Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021, we got an idea of what happens when the Arab street in Israel explodes: pogroms in Lod, Acco, Jaffa; assaults on Jews in the streets. Back then, people mostly had stones and clubs. What will happen next time, when they have MAGs and assault rifles?

“If during Guardian of the Walls they would have decided to use these weapons against settlements and bases,” says Eran Doron, “they could have taken the Nevatim base.” He lets the sentence hang. “The problem isn’t the border. Weapons are arriving in Bedouin communities around Be’er Sheva.”

Perhaps the most troubling point is that the weapons are already here. They are not en route; they are not in the process of being smuggled. They are dispersed across civilian areas inside Israel, in hands that are waiting for the right moment — for Doomsday.

The question is not whether they will arrive, but when — and what spark will ignite the blaze.

The Shifting Paradigm

On September 8, 2025 something happened for the first time in 54 years: Two rockets were fired from a Palestinian village toward Modiin. One fell inside the village, the other landed near the town of Saffa, about three kilometers away. This was the first successful launch from Judea and Samaria since the Katyusha rocket attack on Petach Tikva in 1971.

A week later, in the dead of night, Yamam special forces raided a structure in Ramallah. Helmet-cam footage shows brief fighting: “We have all three,” they say into the radio. Inside they found dozens of rockets — some with warheads — explosive charges, bomb-making materials, and a lathe for rocket production. One rocket had already been launched and flew about two kilometers — as far as Route 443.

Two weeks later they found 15 more rockets in the same area, eight of them loaded with explosives. Over time, a terrorist cell had built infrastructure and prepared for something big.

To grasp the gravity of the situation, we need to understand what distinguishes Judea and Samaria from the Gaza Strip. Gaza is dozens of miles away from Israel’s population centers From Judea and Samaria the distance is zero. Route 443, Ben-Gurion Airport, central Tel Aviv, Jerusalem — are all within direct range.

Ariel Sharon used to show this to foreign leaders from the “country’s balcony” — a demonstration of how Ben-Gurion Airport and the major cities could become targets of Palestinian rocket fire. In September 2025, that nightmare became reality.

There’s more: At the beginning of last week, 150 Palestinians crossed the separation fence from Har Chevron into the Mateh Yehudah area near Nechushah, where Chief of Central Command Major-Gen. Avi Bluth lives. Fewer than a third of them were apprehended. The next day, dozens of Palestinians infiltrated towards the settlement of Neta. These incursions add to the thousands — perhaps tens of thousands — of Palestinians who cross the fences daily, some seeking work, some merely surveying the terrain. Preparing.

The sequence of events shows a shift from targeted terrorism toward building infrastructure. From isolated attacks to organized cells. From stones to rockets.

The Three Threads

Three threads that once looked separate are becoming intertwined: weapons flowing northward from the Negev through family ties and cross-region marriages. Terrorists entering from the Jordanian border after training in Lebanon. And within Judea and Samaria, local capability to produce and launch rockets is growing.

There is one more factor and that is the most alarming: “Doomsday.” This is not a planned, single attack; instead, people buy weapons, arm themselves, and then wait for the spark. When it ignites, the weapons will come out of hiding, simultaneously, in many places.

It might be a provocative diplomatic incident or a major terror attack that will trigger uprisings in multiple locations at once: In the Negev, hundreds armed with machine guns. In Judea and Samaria, rockets fired at Ben-Gurion Airport and the country’s center. In mixed cities, pogroms. Mass infiltrations by thousands of armed terrorists.

This is not imaginary information. Every individual element of it has already happened or almost happened. Rockets have been fired. Smuggling happens every night. The weapons caches exist. The infiltrations are a daily occurrence. The uprisings by Israeli Arabs have also taken place.

The alarms have been raised, the alerts are flashing, but the Tequila teams haven’t yet been deployed to the scene.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1086)