Drones may fly more slowly than missiles, but the Iranian-designed carbon-fibre models used by Hezbollah are hard to see and difficult for radar to pick up, a task made more complicated because they are flown deliberately low.

Manoeuvrable, this drone, said to be Sayyad 107, resisted GPS guidance jamming, possibly because it used Russian or Chinese alternatives.

It is not the first time in recent days that a drone has got through.

A retirement home in Herzliya was struck by a drone on Friday during the Yom Kippur holiday – one of two that crossed the border from Lebanon. The other was shot down successfully by a fighter jet, but the second struck the building a few miles north of Tel Aviv.

Israel’s air force said on Monday it intercepted more than 80% of incoming drones – 221 out of 1,200 that have been fired at the country during the war so far, have got through.

An increase in the number of attacks and the growing sophistication of what remain relatively cheap to produce weapons will increase the risk of Israeli casualties as the fighting continues.

However, the number of civilian and military casualties caused by Israeli attacks in Lebanon and Gaza remains far greater.

But such is the asymmetry of the conflict that repeated successful strikes on Israel will raise questions about the completeness of the country’s air defences.