Watch: Hezbollah says Lebanon blast was Israel destroying its own crashed drone
An IDF spokeswoman said the army does not comment on foreign reports.
By YAAKOV LAPPINA part from what Lebanese media claims is an Israeli drone
An Israel Air Force drone crashed in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on Sunday, according to Lebanese media reports. An Israeli aircraft then fired on it and destroyed the downed unmanned platform, the reports said.The army “does not comment on foreign reports,” an IDF spokeswoman said.A blast heard in a remote area in western Lebanon on Sunday was the sound of the strike targeting the drone, according to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station, based in Beirut.A part from what Lebanese media claims is an Israeli droneAl Jazeera initially claimed Sunday that Israeli fighter jets attacked targets in the Bekaa Valley.According to the report, IAF jets struck in the mountainous areas near the town of Saghbine.A Lebanese security source told Reuters that the cause of the blast “is still not 100 percent clear but most probably it was an Israeli air strike to destroy their drone.”International media outlets have attributed attacks carried out on the Syria-Lebanon border to Israel on a number of occasions during the ongoing Syrian civil war.While Israel’s policy is to refrain from responding to foreign reports, senior officials have said repeatedly that Israel would not allow the Syrian regime to transfer “game-changing” weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Earlier this year an alleged Israeli helicopter strike in Syria killed several Hezbollah members and an Iranian general.The group hit back days later with a rocket attack that killed two Israeli soldiers on the frontier with Lebanon.Observers and Lebanese residents have sometimes seen surveillance planes over Lebanon before such strikes.Reuters contributed to this report.