An Israeli “Skylark” drone crashed in the Aita al-Shaab area of southern Lebanon on Monday, Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported.
Tensions have increased in recent months between Israel and Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah movement, and Monday’s crash is the second of an Israeli drone in southern Lebanon this year.
Israeli forces went on alert along the border following the incident as Israeli warplanes overflew the region, NNA added.
Hezbollah-affiliated media reportedly took photographs of the drone before Lebanese authorities confiscated it for further inspection.
The Israeli army meanwhile confirmed that a small Israeli military drone crashed in southern Lebanon on Monday afternoon.
“The incident is being investigated,” the Times of Israel news portal quoted a military spokesperson as saying.
“There did not appear to be a risk that classified information could be retrieved from the device,” the Israeli army said.
Israel and Hezbollah have fought numerous conflicts but their last big war was in 2006.
Their most serious recent flare-up came in 2015 when Hezbollah militants killed two Israeli troops in retaliation for a deadly air strike in Syria.
However, Israel has conducted more attacks on Hezbollah in Syria in recent months, including a strike in April near Damascus airport.
Lebanon regards Israel’s flying of drones in its airspace as a violation of its national sovereignty and regularly accuse Israel of breaching the ceasefire agreement that ended the 2006 war.
REUTERS/YL
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