Dual-use tech: the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) example

As is now standard in the industry, drones in the Heron line are sold as highly customisable, and can be fitted with “customer-furnished sensor suites”. These include radar, electro-optical and infrared sensors, thermal imaging cameras, an automatic identification system (AIS) and mobile phone interception devices. IAI’s website makes no mention of Heron 1 being armed.

Heron 1 has been used by the Israeli military since 2005, with estimates of up to 250 in the army’s arsenal. It has been reportedly heavily employed in the ongoing war on Gaza and was one of the first on the scene following the Hamas attack on October 7th 2023, where it carried out reconnaissance ahead of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)'s wholescale assault on the territory. In the summer of 2025, activists from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla reported that the Greek Coastguard used a Heron drone to harass both the Madleen and Handala missions as they attempted to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip (both were later seized by the Israeli military). Besides Israel, reports indicate that Heron has been used by the armed forces of numerous countries including India, Turkey, Australia, Greece, Singapore, South Korea and the Czech Republic.

Given the size and expense of Heron, one way IAI enters new markets is via lease-purchase agreements, which provide the option to buy the product at the end of the term. For example, in 2020 the Hellenic Air Force signed a three-year lease-purchase agreement for Heron for border security purposes; these were subsequently bought. According to reporting, the Heron is currently the main drone used in surveillance missions in Greece, where (as in Israel) it doubles up as a tool to monitor wildfires.

States commonly ‘indigenise’ foreign-built drones for local purposes. The Harfang, for example, is reportedly a French iteration of Heron 1 produced in collaboration with Airbus, and marketed by the latter for “target detection”, anti-terror missions, border control, anti-smuggling operations, and environmental monitoring purposes. The French government put Harfang to use in missions ranging from domestic security assignments, to Operation Harmattan - the project to unseat Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi.

In 2015, France sold several Harfang drones to the Moroccan army, a purchase which critics believe - and subsequent evidence suggests - was motivated by Morocco’s repressive campaign in the Western Sahara, where drone strikes have been used to assassinate separatist Polisario rebels. Morocco would become a major IAI customer, but at the time of the first suspected drone strike it did not officially possess armed drones, although one Moroccan news source did point to Harfang involvement. There has been speculation as to whether their role was purely target identification, but given the weaponisation of a similar IAI drone (see below), the possibility that Morocco possessed an armed variant should also be considered.

India’s military relies on Israeli UAVs, with IAI’s Heron and Searcher appearing to have played an important role in its recent drone war in Pakistan. Under ‘Project Cheetah’, the Indian armed forces planned to arm its large fleet of Herons with IAI’s assistance. However, it shelved its plans following a decision to purchase Predator, General Atomics’ attack drone.

Heron does not appear to be favoured among law enforcement agencies, perhaps owing to its large size and the rapid growth of more agile products made by competitors. Nevertheless, in 2009, the Brazilian Federal police bought two Herons to monitor drug trafficking and enhance security during the Rio de Janeiro World Cup, before handing them to the Brazilian Air Force.

Both Heron and a variant, T-Heron, are marketed by IAI for “securing your borders from terrorists, smugglers and illegal immigrants” and besides its use in military contexts, migrants’ rights campaigners may be familiar with Heron for its role in border patrol in the Mediterranean. IAI has been subcontracted by Airbus to surveil refugees in transit, carry out search and rescue operations and effectively - although unofficially - facilitate pushbacks in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean since they were trialled in 2018. It currently enjoys its share of a two-year, €184m framework contract signed with EU borders agency, Frontex, in late 2024. The role is subcontracted to IAI by Airbus, with the other beneficiary being Italian arms company, Leonardo. IAI said that permission to fly the large drones in the EU’s civilian airspace was “important progress” for the company, as it represented a pathway to further civilian markets.

The significant battlefield experience has meant that Heron drones have received regular ‘upgrades’. Among the derivatives IAI has launched are T-Heron, again sold for military and ‘homeland security’ functions (the only difference with the original drone is reportedly the size); and two variants which are marketed only to military buyers: Heron TP, and Heron MK II.

Heron TP (Heron 2, aka Eitan) was officially launched in 2007 and is now a staple within the IDF. While IAI makes no mention of the drone’s weapons capability, leaks by former US National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, revealed images that appear to show Heron TPs carrying missiles for the Israeli Air Force, something which a leaked GCHQ report confirms. Early reports of the latest military assault on Gaza indicate extensive use of Heron TP. The drone was deployed during Operation Cast Lead in 2008, and it has been used in IDF missions in the West Bank, as well as recent strikes on Iran. French arms firm Thales has provided some of the drone’s components (transponders and collision-avoidance radars).

Any doubts over Heron TP’s lethal potential were resolved in 2022, when the German Ministry of Defence bought 140 armed variants, co-developed and maintained by Airbus, following a lease-purchase agreement. Immediately following Hamas attack on October 7th 2023, Germany gave permission for two of the drones it had bought - still in Israel having been used to train German pilots - to be deployed in the assault on Gaza.

Besides its Heron line of surveillance UAVs, IAI produces a number of smaller spy drones through its 50% stake in BlueBird Aero Systems. These devices (ThunderB, ThunderB-VTOL, WanderB-VTOL, WanderB-FC and SpyLite) are promoted for “wide-ranging military and civilian applications” including infrastructure protection, border monitoring, law enforcement, combat operations, natural disaster response, search and rescue, and mapping services. In its promotional material, BlueBird cites “today’s increasingly complex scenarios of violent civil disobedience, environmental hazards and urban terrorism”, and suggests its technology is effective in tackling “protests, riots and hooliganism”.

The “combat proven” SpyLite drone is according to reporting advertised as it can integrate systems that among others can intercept and block their communications.

In 2015, it was revealed that SpyLite had been heavily deployed in Gaza to provide intelligence to Israeli forces. Other users include police forces in Greece and Colombia (both of which also bought ThunderB) and the armed forces of India, Chile and Ethiopia. In 2020-21, two significant deals were struck for the ThunderBs and WanderBs: one involved the sale of 150 devices to an undisclosed European buyer, and another involved the supply of 150 drones to the Moroccan army. The latter deal was followed by the purchase of SpyX, BlueBird’s kamikaze reconnaissance drone. So strong is the relationship between Morocco and the Israeli drone manufacturers, that in May 2024 BlueBird announced the establishment of a drone factory in Rabat.

In addition to aerial drones, IAI produces various unmanned ground robots marketed at both homeland security and defence agencies. These include RoBattle, a customisable system which can be armed with remotely-controlled weapons; and Guardium, an autonomous border patrol vehicle (co-produced with Elbit), aimed at military, commercial and homeland security customers. Guardium not only has the capacity to be armed, but images of the product on its webpage show only models with a mounted machine gun. It is known to have been used for daily patrols around Gaza’s border as well as Israel’s wall in the West Bank. While these ground systems have been displayed at arms shows such as London’s DSEI, IAI has reportedly struggled to get the Guardium adopted abroad.

Another core aspect of IAI’s business is its array of radar and sensor systems, which are specialties of one of its largest and most important subsidiaries, ELTA Systems, and are critical building blocks for its larger products.

One of many such devices is ELM-2112 (‘Seagull’), a persistent surveillance radar system openly described as dual-use. An upgrade to an earlier model, the Seagull can be fixed in position or mounted on a vehicle. It can detect and track people, vehicles and vessels in a range of environments including urban spaces (a recent video mentions its use in detecting “small boats”). The Seagull has been used by the IDF along Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, and was reportedly bought by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza (military police) to monitor the country’s coastline for irregular migration, drug trafficking and environmental offences. Due to its “advanced human motion detection features” the Seagull was selected by US Border Patrol in 2015 to counter “illegal” crossings by migrants and drug trafficking at the country’s Mexican border. More recently, a US ELTA subsidiary was one of a handful of companies - and the only foreign entity - chosen by the first Trump administration to build a prototype of the country’s border wall.

Partnerships and programmes

While IAI is explicit in its advocacy of dual-use technologies, the defence giant appears to need the help of defter partners to commercialise its tech and compete in a dynamic market. This may be due to the large, rugged and costly nature of its products, IAI’s potential image problem as an Israeli arms developer, or possibly its lack of local connections and marketing prowess.

In 2021, it announced a five-year partnership with SixAI, an Israeli “company building platform”, to “convert military technology to commercial deployments”. As part of this arrangement, SixAI gave IAI $40m for access to its technology and labs with a view to commercialising dual-use products. In 2024, IAI also established a US “innovation center”, the first programme of which, IAI Catalyst, “accelerates dual-use startups”. IAI provides the selected companies with funding, mentoring, and the opportunity to be part of a pilot project with IAI that will ultimately bring products to market.

The EU has been another important IAI partner. In the past two decades, IAI has been selected for participation in at least 44 Horizon and other EU research projects, for which it received over €23m - the vast majority of it public money. This research has enabled IAI to stress-test its technologies at the public’s expense, and bring them to market in a range of new contexts. UK-coordinated projects IAI was involved in include two led by Bath University, and another led by Airbus.

From 2008-12 IAI participated in TALOS, a €19m Polish-led research project to develop a scalable, autonomous border control system to “help curb illegal crossings” at Europe’s land borders. The concept was an integrated model involving a command and control system, sensors and unmanned ground vehicles, and a plan to connect it with drones - all of these being technologies which IAI manufactures. It is unclear whether TALOS was ever adopted as a unified system, since it encountered problems relating to algorithms for autonomous navigation, as well as “cross-border constraints” significant enough to be cited as barriers to deployment. However, it is hard to miss its resemblance to IAI’s hybrid robotic border control system announced a few years later (essentially by creating a communication line between the RoBattle ground robot and one of its drones, BirdEye 650D). It also bears similarities to the border control package provided to Argentina’s Gendarmería Nacional, which integrated radars, a surveillance and reconnaissance vehicle (ELI-3302 Granite) and drones (BirdEye 650D, mini-UAV BirdEye 400, and HoverMast100).

From 2010-12, IAI was part of OPARUS - a €1.4m euro EU project to develop a common drone-based border surveillance system. The research was coordinated by French aerospace firm Safran and included BAE Systems, Thales and Airbus as participants. Among the project’s tasks was to “identify a set of adequate surveillance sensors for threat detection” and “list and classify platforms which might be suitable for a UAS performing border surveillance within Europe”. Again, IAI produces both technologies, and Heron continues to be the EU’s preferred platform for aerial surveillance of its borders. One of the report’s conclusions was the need to overcome regulatory hurdles for drones to operate in civilian airspace. Years later, in February 2025, one of the first cross-border drone flights occurred in Europe with IAI’s Heron TP travelling from military airspace in Germany into Dutch civil airspace. This was facilitated by the drone receiving the first “globally valid flight certification” ever given to UAVs (whether the aircraft was Germany’s armed variant was not disclosed). The move was promoted by the European Defence Agency (EDA), which has been working to integrate large military drones into civilian airspace for several years. These shifts have the potential to significantly expand the deployment of military technology in European civilian spheres.

Another problem highlighted by the OPARUS project was that the system’s radar could not penetrate foliage in Poland’s forested areas; a few years later, IAI announced that it had developed a variant of the Seagull - used in Gaza - with precisely this capability, and touted it for border control purposes.

OPARUS also made the recommendation that the EU carry out “multipurpose [surveillance] missions” - and not solely border monitoring operations - in order to increase the cost effectiveness of drone flights. Perhaps Frontex’s monitoring of Gaza Freedom Flotilla missions with Heron drones is an example of that recommendation put into practice.

IAI enjoys a special relationship with European aerospace company, Airbus, with the latter acting as something of a broker for IAI in Europe. It operates as a partner in the Frontex deal, serves as primary contractor for the German Heron-TP, and has collaborated with the company on numerous research projects. Airbus has also integrated IAI’s radar technology into its C295 maritime surveillance aircraft.

Other critical issues

As we’ve detailed, IAI’s technologies have played a role in the occupation and genocide in Palestine. In a stark example of how the occupation weaponises everyday technology, it took Caterpillar’s D9 bulldozer - already used by the military to destroy Palestinian homes (and sometimes kill or wound their occupants) - and developed a remotely-controlled variant, the RobDozer (aka Panda). In 2024, it was announced that these were being deployed in Gaza, where over 90% of homes have been damaged or destroyed.

A report by ECCP, a network of European Palestinian rights organisations, discussed the IDF’s policy of deliberate targeting of Palestinians, and the importance of IAI’s thermal imaging technologies in assessing population density and maximising casualties during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9. Given the targeted killings at Gaza’s emergency food distribution points, it’s an important open question as to whether IAI’s vast array of sensor systems, which can detect movement and track human targets, are being put to similar use.

People & politics

IAI has a long history of hiring personnel from the IDF and the Israeli government. For instance, it has been headed by Israeli Air Force veteran Boaz Levy since 2020. Its Executive VP of Chief Strategy is Maj. Gen. (res.) Muni Katz, who served as Commander of the IDF’s Depths Corps unit responsible for classified operations “far from Israel’s borders”.

From 2021, IAI’s chairman was Amir Peretz, the former Defence Minister who had abandoned his role as leader of Israel’s Labor party a year earlier to join a coalition led by current Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, reneging on earlier commitments to the contrary. Moroccan-born Peretz oversaw Morocco’s rapprochement with Israel, and subsequent major trade deals with IAI.

Peretz stepped down from the board in 2024 and was replaced by Gilad Erdan, a Likud party politician and former minister, who recently served as Israel’s ambassador to the UN. During his political career, Erdan instigated various measures to suppress the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement by exerting pressure on companies, pushing for anti-BDS legislation across US states and blacklisting organisations and individuals. Following a vote in favour of Palestine’s admittance to the UN, he pulled a stunt at the General Assembly by running the UN charter through a miniature shredder.

Who’s behind the brand?

IAI is 100% owned by the government of Israel. The company has dozens of subsidiaries, one of the largest being ELTA Systems Ltd, which produces many of IAI’s sensors, radars, electronic warfare and communication systems.