Israel conducts air strike over the border in Lebanon to 'destroy its own downed drone'

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Israeli war plane reportedly struck a remote area in Lebanon’s western Bekaa region to destroy a drone which landed over the border

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Israel launched an airstrike strike in Lebanon in order to destroy its own drone which had crashed, according to reports.

A blast in a remote part of the western Bekaa region in Lebanon took place on Sunday.

An unnamed security source told the AFP news agency that the strike was launched to destroy one of Israel’s drones “that crashed in the mountains outside Saghbine”.

However, the photos of the reported drone published by Lebanese mediashow Cyrillic script on a piece of the wreckage, “indicating that the drone may have been manufactured either in Russia or Eastern Europe”.

“I think the whole issue is not about Israel at all”, said Tal Inbar, Head of Space and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles at the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies in Israel.

“Look at the pictures of Israeli-made UAVs”, he said, implying that the photos disseminated in the Lebanese media did not appear to resemble Israeli-made UAVs.

Rival powers may seek to destroy drones that crash land in enemy territory “for obvious reasons”, said Mr Inbar, because “you don’t want the new technology to be adopted by the enemy and be transferred.”

In September 2014, Israel remotely detonated a spying device placed on a hilltop in southern Lebanon that was discovered by Hizbollah. A UAV was used to trigger the explosion that destroyed the device, Lebanese media reported. A Hizbollah operative was killed in the operation.

While it neither confirmed nor denied placing intelligence-gathering devices, Israel has told the UN in 2009 that gathering intelligence in southern Lebanon will continue as long as the Lebanese government is not in full control of the area, Haaretz daily reported.

An Israeli Defence Forces spokesperson declined to comment on the reports when contacted by The Telegraph.