Islam Times - Lebanon exhibits drones used in botched Israeli raids

Lebanon’s defense minister has exhibited a pair of drones that had been dispatched on a bombing mission by Israel but crashed in a southern neighborhood of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, last month.

During a press briefing in Beirut on Thursday, Minister Elias Bou Saab displayed the drones — one intact and the other damaged — and used slides to give a detailed account of the Israeli aggression on August 25.

Bou Saab said the aircraft were “advanced military products” and provided the name and address of one Israeli company that made some of their components.

He said that the data retrieved from the intact drone offered a set of detailed times and locations.

The Israeli operation was initiated 11.6 kilometers off the coastal airstrip of Habonim, south of the Israeli city of Haifa, the minister said, adding that the explosives-laden device had been guided by another, larger drone in the area.

To reach its target, the first drone flew over the Jnah district near Beirut International Airport, in what Bou Saab said would have posed a risk to civilian air traffic.

Hezbollah earlier said the first drone had fallen on a building housing the resistance movement’s media office in Beirut’s Dahieh suburb. The second drone, which appeared to have been sent by Israel to search for the first one, crashed in an empty plot nearby after being detonated in the air.

After the incident, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said that the resistance movement was determined to give a response to Israel.

Nasrallah also vowed in a televised speech that fighters of the resistance movement would counter any further violation of Lebanese airspace by Israeli drones.

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun also said that the Israeli aerial transgressions amounted to a “declaration of war.”

Tel Aviv staged full wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, during both of which it was forced to withdraw after being confronted by Hezbollah’s defensive power.