Lebanese army targets Israeli drones after Beirut attack
THE Lebanese army opened fire on Israeli surveillance drones over southern Lebanon last night, raising the stakes in the conflict between the warring neighbours.
The military, which does not possess air defence systems, fired shots from M16 assault rifles at low-flying Israeli drones over the village of al-adaisseh, near their shared border.
Israel regularly flies unmanned surveillance planes into Lebanese airspace, but it is rare for the Lebanese army to attempt to shoot them down.
It appeared to be following through on a promise to protect its sovereignty after an Israel drone strike on Hizbollah territory in Beirut over the weekend.
Michel Aoun, Lebanon’s president, whose Christian Free Patriotic Movement party is allied with Hizbollah, on Tuesday stressed its right to defend the country “by any means”.
Hizbollah had warned yesterday that it was preparing its own “calculated strike” against Israel in retaliation for its raid on a Hizbollah position near the Syrian city of Damascus on Saturday that left two fighters dead and a drone attack in southern Beirut hours later that reportedly damaged missile-making equipment.
“We want the strike to be a surprise … and so there is no interest in diving into the details,” said Sheikh Naim Qassem, the Lebanese Shia group’s deputy leader. “The coming days will reveal this.”
Sources familiar with decision-making in the militia told The Daily Telegraph that it would likely send a drone into Israel in a like-for-like response and that it would attempt to target Israeli soldiers on patrol near the border to “avenge” the killing of its men.
It was reported in Israeli media that the drone strike targeted and successfully destroyed machinery used for the production of precision-guided missiles in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. Israel has been trying to disrupt the flow of weapons and technology from arch-rival Iran to the Islamic republic’s proxies in Syria and Lebanon. It has carried out hundreds of strikes against Hizbollah and Iranian forces’ positions in Syria, which have so far been met with little response.