US Marines official: Nearly half of drones IDF shoots down are its own

The IDF is shooting down a significant number of its own drones in the course of operations, The War Zone (TWZ) reported Thursday, citing a US Marine Corps official.

According to Marine Lt.-Col. Michael Pruden, the IDF destroyed 40% of its own uncrewed aerial systems (UAS).

Pruden is head of the Marine Air Command and Control Integration Branch of the Air Combat Element Division within the service’s Combat Development and Integration Command (CD&I).

“Something interesting that comes from Israel, 40 percent, 40 percent (this figure was repeated for emphasis), of the UASs … knocked out” by Israel are instances of “friendly fire,” Pruden said during a talk at the annual Modern Day Marine exposition on Wednesday.

He did not provide any additional details of this statistic, including a timeframe, according to TWZ. However, he did imply that this data comes from operations in the Gaza Strip in the current war against Hamas.

While discussing possible reasons for this number of friendly drones that are knocked down, Pruden said, “As Israel’s engaging in Gaza, and they’re on their front line, they see a small UAS; what are they going to do if it’s not identified immediately? They’re going to shoot it down.”

Pruden said this is the default course of action because the time between when a drone might be detected and when it could execute an attack is usually measured in “seconds.”

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