Report: Hizbullah Most Sophisticated Antagonist Confronting Israel in Region
Israel is determined to implement the lessons it learned from the Second Lebanon War, and to define its targets more clearly, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Saturday.
The report pointed out that Hizbullah’s launch of the Iranian-made drone, which penetrated Israeli airspace last Saturday, served as a reminder of the complicated balance of deterrent power between the sides.
It said that Hizbullah, which is backed by Iran, “looms as the most sophisticated antagonist vis-a-vis Israel in the region is not in dispute.”
Hizbullah's Chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah acknowledgment of the drone which Israel shot down on October 6 came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed at Hizbullah and vowed to defend his country against further "threats."
"A sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft was sent from Lebanese territory ... and traveled hundreds of kilometers over the sea before crossing enemy lines and into occupied Palestine," Nasrallah said on television.
He warned that it would not be the last such operation by his party.
"It's not the first time (that a drone was sent) and it will not be the last. We can reach all the zones" of Israel, said Nasrallah, referring to a less sophisticated drone sent by Hizbullah during its 2006 war against Israel.
Israeli warplanes shot down the unmanned plane, but the infiltration marked a rare breach of Israel's tightly guarded airspace. Hizbullah had been the leading suspect because of its arsenal of sophisticated Iranian weapons and a history of trying to deploy similar aircraft.
In July 2006, the Israeli military shot down an unarmed drone operated by Hizbullah over the Jewish state's territorial waters.
And on April 12, 2005, another pilotless Hizbullah aircraft succeeded in overflying part of northern Israel without being downed.
Israel routinely sends F-16 fighter planes over Lebanon, in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. The Israeli planes have often broken the sound barrier over Beirut and other places as a show of strength, most recently after the drone incident.
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