Hizbullah Strongly Denies Israel Destroyed One of Its Drone Depots

Hizbullah on Tuesday strongly denied a media report claiming that Israel had recently destroyed a drone depot belonging to the group.

“Hizbullah strongly denies the reports about a Zionist force entering into one of the resistance’s drone depots and destroying it,” the group said in a statement, describing the reports as totally baseless.

Hizbullah expert Qassem Qassir, who is close to the party, has claimed in a report published Tuesday on the Asas Media news website that Israeli commandos had recently “managed to infiltrate and destroy one of Hizbullah’s drone depots.”

“Hizbullah only discovered this operation after the commandos returned to where they came from,” Qassir quoted “sources informed on the Hizbullah-Mossad war” as saying.

“Hizbullah possesses accurate information about the enemy’s readiness to carry out other operations in Lebanon and Syria, with the aim of destroying the workshops where long-range missiles are being transformed into precision-guided missiles,” the sources added.

The sources also said that Israel wants to destroy Hizbullah’s drone factories.

“The drones that the enemy is sending are gathering information about these targets, and sometimes special operations to strike the arms and missile factories are being conducted without being announced,” the sources added.

In response, Hizbullah has intensified its drone overflights in Israel’s airspace and is gathering intel about the movements of the Israeli army and Mossad, the sources said.

The sources added that Hizbullah might also set up ambushes for the Israelis similar to the 1997 Ansariyeh Ambush.

Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai had also recently quoted U.S. diplomatic sources as saying that Israel has carried out “sabotage and espionage operations that targeted sensitive Hizbullah posts inside Lebanese territory.”

Israeli elite commandos managed to “destroy secret facilities inside those posts and to seize important information related to Hizbullah’s arms program and the means of communication between its combat units,” the U.S. sources added.

“Over the past months, Israeli elite forces conducted operations in various areas of Lebanon and entered into Hizbullah posts. These forces left messages to Hizbullah asking it to dismantle what is present in the manufacturing plants,” the sources went on to say.

The Kuwaiti daily also suggested that Hizbullah sent the ‘Hassan’ drone deep into Israel “in response to the intelligence breaches that were made by the Israeli elite units.”

In an annual speech last month, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had warned Israel against carrying out any operations inside Lebanese territory.

“Should the enemy dare to carry out a certain operation in search of our missiles, it might face an ‘Ansariyeh 2’ operation,” Nasrallah said, referring to Israel’s 1997 botched landing on Ansariyeh’s shore in which 12 of its troops were killed.