The contraption looked like a giant red-and-white kite as it purred across Israel's northern border from Lebanon. Powered by a lawn mower-size engine and a small propeller, the hang glider whirred its way three miles into Israel. Israeli soldiers posted in south Lebanon heard the strange vehicle, but the helicopter gunships dispatched to identify the intruder could not find it. Finally, the hang glider landed with a thud in a field of thistles just north of the Israeli town of Qiryat Shemona.
Within minutes, the craft's single passenger was fulfilling his bloody mission. Armed with a Soviet-made Kalashnikov assault rifle, a...