Israel Defense Forces said an Israeli drone crashed in Lebanon on Wednesday during a routine operation near the border between the two countries.
and Twitter
The military said the nature of the UAV there is no possibility of intelligence to be leaked.
Lebanese media later reported that Lebanese terror group Hezbollah is responsible for the downing of the drone.
Israeli drone crashes in Lebanon
However, a Lebanese satellite television station affiliated with Hezbollah - Al-Manar - said a resident of Kafarkela, a village in southern Lebanon not far from Israeli border, downed the UAV with his shotgun.
The IDF uses dozens of drones near the border with Lebanon on a daily basis for intelligence gathering purposes, with technical failures which result in the crashing occurring on average once every month.
Two months ago, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to destabilize Israel’s drone activity in the area. “Since the year 2000, our skies have been full of UAVs,” he said in a speech from his bunker.”
“This does not mean that we will down every drone … otherwise Israel will start sending dozens of UAVs in order to make us waste our air defense capabilities,” he said. “Our goal is to show the enemy that they cannot feel comfortable moving around in our airspace.”