A German indictment against a foreign Hezbollah operative has revealed that on the eve of the war with Israel, Hezbollah possessed an estimated 10,000 UAVs of various types.
The trial of Lebanese national Ali Fadel Z. began on Tuesday at the district court in Celle, northern Germany. The 35-year-old, identified publicly only as “Fadel Z.” under German privacy law, is charged with belonging to Hezbollah and playing a central role in supplying the group’s drone-production program.
According to the German federal prosecutor, Fadel Z. joined Hezbollah more than a decade ago and initially worked in its public relations department. In 2022, he became what prosecutors describe as a “foreign operator” of Hezbollah’s UAV program, first working out of Barcelona, Spain, and later relocating to Germany in the summer of 2023.
The indictment states that Hezbollah has been running a large-scale UAV manufacturing program for years. Following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, prosecutors say Hezbollah launched “an organized campaign of rocket fire and explosive-laden UAV strikes” on both military and civilian sites inside Israel.