Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds up piece of Iranian UAV in February. Illustrative. Photo courtesy of Amos Ben Gershom GPO
For the second time in a matter of months, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was spotted heading towards the Israeli border from inside Syria on Sunday, but this time the drone was targeted by Israeli defenses before it could enter Israeli airspace. A Patriot air defense missile was fired at the UAV and “as a result, the vehicle retreated from the border,” the IDF Spokesperson said on Twitter in a series of posts.
The IDF Spokesperson tweeted that “a hit was not identified,” but highlighted that the Israeli defenses recognized the drone “threat” prior to it reaching Israel. The IDF Spokesperson also emphasized that aerial invasions are unacceptable.
Said the Twitter post, “The IDF will not allow the State of Israel’s aerial sovereignty to be violated and will operate to prevent any attempts to harm its civilians.”
In February, an Iranian drone entered Israeli airspace before being shot down by Israeli forces. The UAV was later found to have been armed with explosives and “tasked to attack Israel,” according to an IDF Spokesperson Twitter post at the time.
The IDF did not identify which country owned the latest drone or the intent of the aerial vehicle for entering Israeli territory. In the complicated Syrian civil war, the military actors include Russia, the United States, Syria, Iran and the Hezbollah terror group—leaving open a wide range of possible countries responsible for the latest drone incident.
Judah Ari Gross, military correspondent for The Times of Israel, tweeted that Patriot missiles have been used in the past to target drones heading towards Israel from Syria.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, June 24, 2018)