Lebanon’s defence minister yesterday exhibited two drones he said Israel had sent last month into a Beirut bastion of Shia militant group Hezbollah.
Elias Bou Saab displayed a pair of drones — one intact and the remains of the other — and used slides to give a detailed account of the alleged Israeli operation.
He said the devices were “advanced military production” and even listed the name and address of one Israeli company he said made some of the components.
The August 25 drone incident in Beirut, which came a day after Israeli strikes targeted Hezbollah operatives in Syria, drastically raised tensions in the region.
Lebanon’s government and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah both described the apparently botched operation as an act of aggression.
Bou Saab said that the data retrieved from the intact drone — from which the explosive charge was purportedly removed for the press conference — offered a set of detailed times and locations.
The operation was initiated 11.6km off the coastal airstrip of Habonim, south of the Israeli city of Haifa, he said, adding that the explosives-laden device had been guided by another larger drone in the area.
To reach its presumed target, that device flew over the Jnah district near Beirut International Airport, in what the defence minister said would have posed a risk to civilian air traffic.
Following the Beirut incident, Hezbollah had vowed to take down Israeli drones overflying Lebanon and on September 9 claimed it had downed and seized one.
The Israeli army confirmed that one of its devices “fell” in Lebanon but it has not commented on the August 25 incident.
Lebanese Minister of Defence Elias Bou Saab points at a part of an Israeli captured drone at a press conference in the Ministry of Defence in Yarze yesterday.
