South Front
Click to see full-size image. Source: Hezbollah Military Media.
On June 26, Hezbollah announced that its fighters had downed a drone of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) over southern Lebanon.
In a statement, the group said that the drone had penetrated some seven kilometers of Lebanese airspace before being downed.
“The Islamic Resistance shot down, with appropriate weapons, an Israeli drone… near the town of Zibqin in south Lebanon,” the statement reads.
From its side, the IDF said that the drone “fell” in Lebanon during routine surveillance activity, without elaborating on how it crashed. The army added that there was no risk of intelligence being taken from the drone.
Hezbollah released footage of the drone, which was identified as an ARC 1000 model made by the Israeli company Colugo. The quadcopter drone sustained minor damage, which suggests that it was downed with either light firearms or electronic warfare means.
The ARC 1000 has a flight range of 100 kilometers, an endurance of 124 minutes and can carry a payload weighing up to 2,5 kilogram. The drone downed by Hezbollah was equipped with a commercial digital SLR camera.
Colugo drones, which feature what the company calls Adaptive Wing Technology, are used by the Israeli military, police, and some medical services.
Tensions have been mounting between Israel and Lebanon since Hezbollah held a military exercise near the front last month. However, the downing of the drone will not likely lead to any further escalation. Hezbollah and the Lebanese military shot down several Israeli reconnaissance drones over the last few years. The IDF does not usually respond to such incidents.
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