Is New Palestinian ‘Attack Drone’ Really a Dud?

Palestinian Islamic Jihad recently claimed it added a new drone to its arsenal, but serious doubts have been raised about the aircraft’s capabilities and existence.

By United with Israel Staff

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) recently posted footage of a new drone it calls the “Jenin,” releasing a glossy video to coincide with its benefactor Iran’s annual “Al Quds Day,” on which the world’s top state sponsor of terror vows to destroy the Jewish state.

“Today we reveal the Jenin drone, which operates in the air force, which our mujahideen continue to reinforce inside the besieged Gaza Strip,” announced PIJ spokesperson, Abu Hamza, according to a report by Mideast expert Joe Truzman in the Long War Journal (LWJ).

“The PIJ publication shows observation video from the ground and from a drone hovering over what appears to be three Israel Defense Forces (IDF) vehicles parked adjacent to the Gaza security fence on Aug. 7, 2019,” explains the LWJ report. “After a few moments, the drone releases an explosive projectile over one of the vehicles but misses by several feet.”

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Palestinian Islamic Jihad has released a video debuting a new loitering drone called “Jenin.” The video first shows the targeting of IDF military vehicles with an IED dropped from a different drone. The second half shows operational activity of the “Jenin”loitering drone. #Gaza pic.twitter.com/knP7etBGDK

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) April 28, 2022

While Truzman acknowledges that “the footage is important in the context of understanding PIJ’s military capabilities,” he notes that the video “appears to be exaggerated and edited in a manner to deceive the viewer.”

Specifically, Truzman identifies an older drone in the video, which “hovers over its target,” indicating that it’s a drone “similar to the DJI S1000,” and not the “Jenin,” which appears later in the video.

He also notes that the included footage of the “Jenin” drone “fails to show any significant operational activity despite the clip’s description of it being on ‘one of its jihadist missions.’”

While Truzman acknowledges the possibility that the video lacks details “intentionally” to maintain secrecy from the IDF, PIJ’s bosses in Iran have a long history of lying about their military capabilities.

In 2018, Iran claimed it was manufacturing a domestically produced fighter jet, which Israel exposed as as a decades-old U.S. model.

“The Iranian regime unveils the Kowsar aircraft and claims [it is a] ‘100% homemade Iranian fighter,” tweeted Ofir Gendelman, who was serving at the time as then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Arabic language spokesman, adding, “I immediately saw that this is a very old US F-5 warplane (manufactured in the late 1950s).”

Similarly, in 2013, Iran unveiled its “first” domestic fighter jet, the Qaher F-313, which Western experts identified as a plastic model of an aircraft too tiny to take flight in reality.

Iran is also suspected of lying about its space program and in 2020 touted a corona detection machine that was exposed as a re-packaged fake bomb that a British con artist sold to Iraqis several years ago.