Click to see full-size image. Source: the al-Quds Brigades.
On June 8, Palestinian fighters clashed with a unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that attempted to storm the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The IDF unit was eventually forced to retreat from the camp without making any arrests. The clashes didn’t result in any casualties. However, the local branch of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said that its fighters had shot down an Israeli reconnaissance drone.
“Our freedom fighters were able to shoot down an Israeli drone over the Jenin camp, and it is in our engineers’ hands who are trying to extract relevant, important and sensitive information,” the brigade said in a statement.
The brigade released photos showing the wreckage of the drone, which was identified as a Chinese-made DJI MATRICE 300 RTK.
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: the al-Quds Brigades.
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: the al-Quds Brigades.
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: the al-Quds Brigades.
The commercially-available drone has an endurance of 55 minutes and an operational range of 15 kilometers. The one shot down by the al-Quds Brigades was equipped with a Zenmuse H20T optical system that includes day and thermal imagers as well as a laser-range finder. The drone and the system cost together around $26,000.
The IDF lost a number of drones in the last few months while conducting what it calls security operations in the occupied West Bank.
Commercial drones are widely used by the IDF not only over Palestinian occupied areas, but also along the fronts with Lebanon and Syria. These drones provide a cheaper and safer alternative to tactical military-grade drones for high-risk missions.
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