JERUSALEM – An Israeli military mission to uncover Hezbollah fighting positions and hidden cross-border routes has brought a centuries-old technology back to life, according to an expert and images from the country’s northern border.
Photos and videos uploaded to social media showed Israeli army reservists operating a trebuchet, a catapult-like instrument used in the Middle Ages, and throwing fireballs over the concrete barrier separating Israel from Lebanon.
Reservists who recently spoke to the Israeli press on condition of anonymity said they had been using the weapon since October with the aim of uncovering hidden militant positions and infiltration routes in the thickets near the border. On October 7, the Gaza-based militant group Hamas launched a fatal attack on Israel and took people hostage, with the Israeli government in turn launching a war against the organization in the southern area.
Guy Stiebel, a military archeology expert at Tel Aviv University who specializes in military archeology and lectures as part of an IDF program, said he knows the soldier who helped build the trebuchet and confirmed opposite Defense News the use of the tool.
“There is a whole field in archeology called experimental archeology that restores and builds tools like the trebuchet for research purposes,” Stiebel noted. “Among the IDF reserves is an expert on the period and on these types of weapons used then, who found a solution to achieve the goals set by his command.”
The weapon’s purpose is to shoot past fortifications, such as those between neighboring states, which Stiebel said can reach 7 to 9 meters (23 to 30 feet).
“The trebuchet shown in the photos is not a particularly large model of the old instrument, and the throwing distances were well [to] about 50 or 60 meters,” he added. “It should be noted that advanced technology cannot always provide solutions, but while there are age-old simple technologies that can do the job, such as the trebuchet, the latter was not adopted by the Israeli Artillery Corps.”
When contacted by Defense News, the IDF denied the existence of the trebuchet nor its use by reservists in the north, but also declined to comment on the subject.
