Israel's military offensive against Hezbollah, which began on 1 October, has left commanders in dire need of geolocalised imagery of Lebanon and beyond. But, as Intelligence Online revealed (IO, 02/08/24), the Israeli military has since the summer been operating with severely degraded space observation capabilities after losing two of their more recent satellites in quick succession. On 9 June, one of two third-generation Ofeq 11 optical satellites was deorbited, followed on 14 July by Ofeq 10, one of two Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites.
In addition to its two "old", second-generation optical satellites, Ofeq 7 and Ofeq 9, launched in 2007 and 2010 respectively, whose performance is ill-suited to modern conflicts, the Israeli military can now only rely on three satellites. Ofeq 16, launched in 2020 for optical observation, Ofeq 13, which has provided SAR coverage since 2023, and commercial operator ImageSat International's Eros C3-1 satellite, launched in 2022 with performance close to that of Ofeq 11. Those satellites appear clearly inadequate given Israel's many observation needs in the region, from Gaza to Iran, Syria to Yemen.
Reserved images only
As a result, Israel is relying more than ever on imagery supplied by the US, something that was discussed during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 23-24 July visit to Washington. As Intelligence Online reported, the Israeli armed forces receive images from private US operator BlackSky, thanks to a secret $150m contract (IO, 30/07/24), as well as images taken by Maxar, via the intermediary of the Pentagon.
The importance of imagery from the region is illustrated by what is no longer available. International clients consulting Maxar's commercial catalogue note that almost no recent imagery is available over key Lebanese areas. For example, in August and September only two images were available of Beirut from WorldView-3 satellites, with all other satellite acquisitions in the region reserved for the Pentagon and therefore not commercially available. The situation for BlackSky is even clearer: no images are available to third parties as the entirety of its daily acquisitions in the region are exclusive to the Pentagon and the Israeli military...
Planet, the media's favourite imagery provider
While few images from BlackSky and Maxar are commercially available, Planet's satellite imagery has been used extensively by the world's media since the start of the 1 October offensive to illustrate Israel's bombardment of Lebanon. The widespread availability of Planet images illustrates the current space resource situation, as the company's images play only a minor role for US and Israeli defence agencies.
