Tel Aviv in the Crosshairs? Iran’s New ‘Gaza’ Military Drone Can Spy Targets in Israel

Following clashes between Israeli forces and a number of Gazan militant groups, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) unveiled a new model of long range drone named the ‘Gaza’. The aircraft was shown at a ceremony attended by the IRGC’s commander in chief Hossein Salami, where it was confirmed that it would be operated by the Iranian military. "Next year it will enter the corps' operational capacity and improve our capability in air battles," Salami stated regarding its introduction into service. The drone is the latest of several high endurance designs which Iran has increasingly relied on to project power, and which have provided and cost effective and demonstrably lethal means of compensating for the country's lack of modern manned combat aircraft. Iranian drones have been extensively combat tested in Syria, and possibly against Saudi Arabian targets when deployed from Yemen, and drones with stealth features have proven highly survivable against Israeli defences and operated at length in Israeli airspace.

The Gaza drone reportedly has a range of 2000km and a flight endurance of over 35 hours, and can be deployed for signals intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, search and rescue, and disaster relief missions. It could potentially complement combat capable drones on the frontlines such as the Fotros which was unveiled in 2020 and the new Shahed-191 which makes use of a stealthy flying wing design. Naming the drone the ‘Gaza’ is only the latest example of Iranian forces or hardware being called after symbolic aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the arm of the IRGC, the Quds force, named after the city of Jerusalem which is disputed between Israeli and Palestinian claimants. A new VHF (very high frequency) band radar system has also been named 'Quds,' and was referred to by General Salami at the ceremony as "an important achievement that is in the production stage and was added to the [Revolutionary] Guards’ combat capability."