Israeli-manufactured Harop drone of the type used by Azerbaijani armed forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. Paris, 2013. Photo CC BY 4.0: Julian Herzog / Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved. After 44 days of war, a Russian-brokered deal has bought an uneasy peace to Nagorno-Karabakh. On September 27, Azerbaijan launched an offensive to retake this mountainous territory, which it had lost to ethnic Armenian forces in the 1988-1994 war. Baku has succeeded, but the war has cost several thousand lives. That peace deal, announced on November 10, has redrawn the map of the South Caucasus. Over the next two months, Azerbaijan will receive control of all the districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, which also fell under Karabakh Armenian control during the first war. The status of that section of Nagorno-Karabakh which Azerbaijan did not conquer, including the heavily bombarded capital of Stepanakert, remains unclear. Some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers will patrol the region, as well as a strategically important road linking it to Armenia. Azerbaijan's victory came in no small part due to external support. NATO member state Turkey, which Azerbaijan has close cultural and economic ties, has weighed in heavily on Baku's side — offering political support, military expertise, and mercenaries from Syria. Baku's friendship with Israel has also been crucial to its battlefield successes. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Israel supplied 60 percent of all Azerbaijan's arms imports between 2015 and 2019. Among them are the SandCat armoured car and several rifle models. Importantly, these imports helped Azerbaijan amass a fleet of military drones, which overwhelmed Armenia's air defence systems and turned the tide in Baku's favour. As a senior source in the Israeli military told the Asia Times on October 14, “Azerbaijan would not have been able to continue its operation at this level without our support”. Not everybody in Israel sees those words as a cause for pride. Azerbaijan's use of sophisticated armaments like these has killed civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh. The majority of the ethnic Armenian population is now believed to have fled the territory. In recent weeks, Israeli-made Harop drones have been seen in the skies above Stepanakert, as the city's residents cower in basements far below. These so-called “kamikaze drones” were also used by the Azerbaijani military in clashes over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2016. Israeli-made cluster bombs have also appeared in Nagorno-Karabakh. In statements October 5 and 23, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch stated that on multiple occasions, the Azerbaijani military had fired Israeli-produced M095 DPICM and LAR-160 cluster munitions at residential areas of the city (there is also evidence to suggest that in one instance on October 30, Armenia fired a Smerch cluster munitions rocket at the Azerbaijani city of Barda). Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan (nor Israel) are signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use of such indiscriminate weaponry. The Israeli government may not have commented on the conflict, but Armenians feel that these arms deals say all that needs to be said. Armenian foreign ministry spokewoman @naghdalyan: "For us, Israel's supply of ultra-modern weapons to Azerbaijan is unacceptable, especially now, in the conditions of Azerbaijan's aggression with the support of Turkey" — Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) October 1, 2020 Since the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began, journalists and flight trackers in Israel have noted a surge in the number of cargo flights from SilkWay Airlines, a carrier linked to Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defence, landing at the Ovda military airbase in southern Israel: Third Azeri heavylifter from Ankara this week. Was in Israel yesterday 4k-az40 pic.twitter.com/mi2WJKX1i5 — avi scharf (@avischarf) October 1, 2020 Armenia has reacted forcefully. In early October, just two weeks after opening an embassy in Tel Aviv, Armenia recalled its ambassador for consultations. When subsequently asked by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin whether Armenia would welcome humanitarian aid, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan exclaimed: “Humanitarian aid from a country selling weapons to mercenaries, which they are using to strike a peaceful civilian population? I propose that Israel send that aid to the mercenaries and terrorists as the logical continuation of its activities”. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post on November 3, Pashinyan stressed that Israel's support for Azerbaijan has put it on the same side as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — somewhat awkwardly, given the strained relations between the two countries.