Efrat Local Council Unveils Security Drone; Will Help Secure Town Perimeter

The drone, which was created by Netanya-based 3^rd Eye Systems at a cost of $37,000, will patrol the perimeter and interior of the town and will assist local security officers and emergency response teams by tracking the movements of an individual who enters the town without authorisation in real time. 

Mayor Oded Revivi said the decision to develop the drone came after a pair of infiltrations in 2016 that left one IDF soldier and one civilian resident of Efrat wounded. “When Efrat was founded in 1983, Rabbi Riskin (the town’s visionary and founding father – AF) endeavoured to build positive relations with the neighboring villages of Wadi Nis and Abdullah Ibrahim,” Revivi said. 

“That’s why Efrat was built without a security fences, and why we still don’t have one. But a year-and-a-half ago, we were hit with two attacks in just a few months, and since then there have been attempts to infiltrate the community approximately once a month. We realised we had to act in order to protect the security of our residents,” Revivi added. 

In recent years drones have played an increasingly prominent role in security operations and military doctrine, both in Israel and abroad. Last Friday, international media reported that rioters on the Gaza-Israel border had downed two drones that had been monitoring the weekly protest, and in march the military began using drones to fire tear gas at protesters as a form of riot control.

Those incidents followed on a February 10 incident in which an unmanned Iranian drone penetrated Israel’s airspace from Syria. Military spokespeople initially said the drone had been launched to gather intelligence abut IDF troop movements, but subsequently said the craft had been carrying explosives and was intended to carry out an attack. 

IN ADDITION TO the 2016 attacks, Efrat and the Gush Etzion region have long been a target of Palestinian terrorism: In 2000 and 2001 three residents of the town were murdered on Route 60, the main thoroughfare leading to Jerusalem, and the sanctuary walls of a local synagogue were desecrated during the same period with graffiti of swastikas and “Heil Hitler” spray painted on the Holy Ark in Arabic. 

A year later, a local resident shot dead a would-be terrorist who was trying to set off a bomb in a supermarket. 

More recently, the Gush Etzion Junction, located just a kilometre from the southern reach of the community, has been the site of repeated stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks

Displaying the drone to reporters, Revivi said the drone would utilise thermal cameras for night use and advanced communications technologies to communicate with security teams on the ground to track the movements of an intruder as soon as the detail has been advised of a breach. He also said that community security teams around Judea and Samaria, as well as the IDF would be monitoring the deployment of the drone in order to asses its usefulness, and thanked the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), headed by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, for underwriting the pilot program. 

“The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews’ helps the State of Israel in the fields of immigration, welfare and security,” said Rabbi Eckstein at the ceremony. “Once we received this request, we raised the necessary funds; now we are working hard to promote the project. With the drone now ready for use in Efrat, we are committed to providing a similar drone to all the communities who turn to us with a need to improve local security. 

“The security of the citizens of the State of Israel is one of the most important areas in our remit and we are certain that this drone will help the residents and significantly increase their personal safety,” Eckstein said, adding that his group plans to provide similar drones to other Judea and Samaria towns in the coming weeks.