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Drones will go where we want, boasts Hizbollah

Hizbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, boasted that it had infiltrated Israeli airspace with a surveillance drone, flying it close to a nuclear installation before it was shot down.

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Hizbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, boasted on Thursday that it had infiltrated Israeli airspace with a surveillance drone, flying it close to a nuclear installation before it was shot down.

Only hours later, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he would retaliate against future incursions.

Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader, said, "This is not the first time and will not be the last. We can reach any place we want."

Israeli Air force jets shot down the unarmed drone over southern Israel's Negev desert near the country's nuclear plant at Dimona after it entered the country's airspace from the Mediterranean Sea last week.

Officials said the incursion was launched from outside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and pointed a finger at Iran as the supplier of the equipment.

The Israeli prime minister accused Hizbollah directly and said Israel would respond to any further threats.

"We are acting with determination to protect our borders," he said.

"As we prevented last weekend an attempt by Hizbollah, we shall continue to act aggressively against all threats."

Last night, in a televised address, Sheikh Nasrallah said the drone had flown within range of sensitive sites.

"A sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft was sent from Lebanese territory and travelled hundreds of kilometres over the sea before crossing enemy lines and into occupied Palestine," he said.

"Possession of such an aerial capacity is a first in the history of any resistance movement in Lebanon and the region."

Hizbollah supporters celebrated the drone manoeuvre widely and especially Israel's failure to shoot it down until it was deep inside its territory.

A report on the website of al Manar, the militia's television station, stated "Enemy in state of fear from unmanned aircraft".

Israel Army radio and the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily newspaper said the air force had only managed to shoot down the drone on the second attempt. Both reports claimed that the first missile fired by the F-16 jet missed the drone and it was eventually brought down by a Panther missile, the military's most advanced air-to-air projectile.

In July 2006, the Israeli military shot down an unarmed drone operated by Hizbollah over the Jewish state's territorial waters. In 2005 another pilotless Hizbollah aircraft flew over part of northern Israel without being shot down.

-- The remains of an Israeli soldier who went missing in northern Israel in 2005 have been found not far from where he was last seen. Private Majdi Halabi's remains were discovered in woods about two miles from the Galilee town where he was sighted on May 24, 2005.
 

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