IFF is the military acronym for Identification Friend or Foe. For many years, the military aircraft of advanced countries have had special IFF transmitters that automatically identify them as "friendlies" to other military units on the same side.
Unfortunately, infantry soldiers do not enjoy the luxury of having electronic IFF gear. This remains a significant omission in the technology of modern warfare. In the current struggle in Lebanon, Hezbollah forces, through the simple expedient of wearing clothing resembling that of Israeli infantry, are using the increased risk of friendly fire among Israeli forces to improve their battlefield effectiveness.
IDF tank and helicopter crews have no easy means of discrimminating among clumps of green-clad infantry in the fleeting seconds that a target presents itself. If they guess wrong, as they did the other day, they kill and injure their own troops.
What Hezbollah is demonstrating in the current fighting in Lebanon is that much of Israel's huge advantage in technology can be negated by relatively simple tactics of concealment. The advanced state of Hezbollah's camouflage methods suggests that the reason Hezbollah was experimenting with reconaissance drone aircraft was not to spy on Israel, but to confirm the effectiveness of their own concealment methods.
Why don't advanced countries provide foot soldiers with IFF devices? Cost is one factor, but security is probably the biggest obstacle. A captured IFF device would allow enemy forces to stage suprise raids and sow tremendous confusion on the battlefield. An ideal infantry IFF system would rely on biometric techniques to prevent the enemy use of captured IFF devices, but this might still not prevent the misuse of captured soldiers to deceive IFF systems.
The irony of Israel's high-tech arsenal is that it cannot be used to maximum effect because it is still not sufficiently precise to discriminate among hostiles, friendlies, and noncombattants. The infantry IFF problem is further evidence that there is no near-term prospect of advances in "smart" weaponry that will nullify the advantages of intelligently organized guerrilla resistance. It is time for Israel to negotiate.