Israel shoots down drone off the coast of Haifa

An Israeli patrol boat and helicopter search for the wreckage of a drone shot down by an Israeli F-16 warplane off the northern coast. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty

Israel is scouring the Mediteranean Sea off the coast of Haifa in search of wreckage from a downed drone after the Israeli military shot the aircraft down. Israel says the unmanned aircraft was coming from the direction of Lebanon, but the militant group Hezbollah would not confirm they sent the drone.

Here’s the news from the Associated Press, titled “Netanyahu’s helicopter forced to land as Israeli forces shoot down drone“:

Israel shot down a drone Thursday as it approached the country’s northern coast, the military said. Suspicion immediately fell on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in northern Israel at the time of the incident, said he viewed the infiltration attempt with “utmost gravity.”

“We will continue to do everything necessary in order to protect the security of the citizens of Israel,” he said.

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said the unmanned aircraft was detected as it was flying over Lebanon and tracked as it approached Israeli airspace.

Lerner said the military waited for the aircraft to enter Israeli airspace, confirmed it was “enemy,” and an F-16 warplane shot it down.

The drone was flying at an altitude of about 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) and was downed roughly five miles (eight kilometers) off the Israeli coast near the northern city of Haifa. Lerner said Israeli naval forces were searching for the remains of the aircraft.

Ynet‘s analysis imparts quite a few ‘safe to assumes‘.

Ynet’s military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai said that it can be safely assumed that the downed drone’s point of departure was a Hezbollah base in the Lebanon Valley. It then flew southwest along the shoreline at a distance of six miles from the coast at an altitude of two kilometers (1.2 miles).

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It is safe to assume that Hezbollah and the Iranian instructors aiding them in the RPV (remotely-piloted vehicle) and MRPV (mini remotely-piloted vehicle) field wanted to test anew their route into Israel as well as the IDF’s alertness in wake of highly publicized reports of Patriot missile batteries being deployed in the Haifa region. The Patriot missiles come equipped with a special radar capable of spotting just such small drones.

It is also possible that Hezbollah and its patron’s current attempt at penetrating a drone into Israeli airspace stemmed not just from their desire to test Israel’s preparedness and interception abilities, but also from their desire to influence public conception.

Hezbollah’s meddling in Lebanon is rising, and the heavy damage the Shiite group causes Lebanon has drawn a lot of anger against the organization within Lebanon, leading even some prominent Hezbollah supporters from the Shiite sects to openly slam its involvement in the Syrian civil war.

It is possible that the drone was sent in an attempt to divert public opinion back to Hezbollah’s efforts to “protect Lebanon from Israel.”

In any case, it is safe to assume that the saga of the Iranian made RPVs and MRPVs operated by Hezbollah is far from over and we are likely to witness them again during an onslaught of missile fire from the north should another war break out.

In October 2012, the Israeli Air Force shot down a drone sent by Hezbollah that had penetrated Israel’s airspace.

The invasion of airspace goes both ways. Israeli intrusions into Lebanon, a violation of the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war in the country, are a far more frequent occurrence than Hezbollah’s invasions of Israeli airspace. In March, the United Nations said that Israel had “doubled its overflights in Lebanese airspace thus far in 2013, compared to the previous year,” according to the Times of Israel.