Hezbollah leader confirms send drone aircraft over Israel

Lebanese Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has claimed responsibility on Thursday for launching the drone aircraft into Israeli airspace earlier this week and was shot down by the Israeli Air Force after flying some 25 miles.

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the militant Lebanon-based group said in a televised speech drone aircraft an Iranian-made and warned that it would not be the last such operation

"The resistance in Lebanon sent a sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft from Lebanon...It penetrated the enemy's iron procedures and entered occupied southern Palestine," Nasrallah said. Hezbollah does not recognize the state of Israel.

Earlier Thursday, The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that unmanned aircraft has entered for a distance about 55 kilometers in Israel before dropping by the Israeli Air Force last Saturday accused Hezbollah of sending the drone..

Nasrallah want to give message that Hezbollah was able of reaching targets inside Israel, Nasrallah said the drone "flew over sensitive installations inside southern Palestine and was shot down in an area near the Dimona nuclear reactor", he said in a televised speech.

Nasrallah claimed the group had more surprises and would not hesitate to use them in any future war with Israel.

The Israeli military said began tracking the drone entered Israel from the Mediterranean before it crossed into Israel flying over the Gaza Strip and then the Negev desert and they allowed it to fly but waited until it was over an empty desert in order to shoot it down in an unpopulated area Iran said this incident show us the weakness of Israeli air defense, indicating that Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system "does not work and lacks the necessary capacity".

Netanyahu said in a statement during a tour of the southern frontier with Egypt that Israel would "act with determination to defend its borders", just as "we thwarted over the weekend Hezbollah's attempt" to penetrate Israeli airspace.

According to CNN , Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations, who specializes in drone technology proliferation and the Middle East said that Hezbollah has been flying drones over Israel for years, "Israel usually tracks these drones as they come across the border and often doesn't bother to shoot them down," Micah Zenko said . "They just want to see what Hezbollah thinks it can do."

Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite group committed to Israel's destruction also an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who is fighting uprising against him has been going on for 18 months and that turned into a full-blown civil Hezbollah sent 3,000 fighters to Syria to support Assad in this war .

Israel and Hezbollah fought a brutal in 2006 during a 34-day war war in which 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed , and Hezbollah fired several thousand rockets and missiles into Israel before the conflict ended in a stalemate.

Sources :

Reuters

CNN

Foxnews