Beersheba Court Indicts Man for Drone Smuggling Across Egyptian Border
An indictment was filed in Beersheba against 25-year-old Walid Al-Ataika Danfiri for flying a drone into Egypt and drug smuggling, highlighting a surge in border security breaches.
The State Attorney's Office filed an indictment at the Beersheba District Court against 25-year-old Walid Al-Ataika Danfiri from Beersheba, charging him with violating state sovereignty at the borders and drug possession. According to the indictment, Danfiri conspired with another individual to illegally transfer an item out of the country, and as part of the plan, the two flew a drone from Israel into Egyptian territory.
The charges state that last month, the suspects equipped themselves with two drones and matching controllers, arriving in a buggy vehicle without license plates and with a forged chassis number near the Israel-Egypt border. They stopped about 1.3 kilometers from the border and flew a drone across to the Egyptian side.
Subsequently, the two drove around the area and concealed two drones, controllers, and approximately 11.1 kilograms of hashish in several nearby locations. They hid the buggy in a shed in Bir Hadaj, switched to another vehicle, and drove to a coffee shop, where they were arrested by police forces.
The State Attorney's Office noted that the indictment was filed against the backdrop of a growing phenomenon of drone smuggling along Israel's borders. According to the allegations, from 2025 until the filing of the indictment, thousands of drone smuggling operations were carried out across the borders, with some cases involving drones capable of carrying dozens of kilograms.
In the motion to detain the suspects until the end of proceedings, the prosecution emphasized that these are severe security offenses of particularly high public interest, given the security situation and attempts by hostile elements to recruit Israeli citizens for smuggling operations. It was further argued that every drone crossing the border with Egypt forces the deployment of troops to the area and unnecessarily endangers lives.
