The Israeli army announced shooting down a drone coming from Lebanon over the Israeli maritime economic zone where oil and gas wells are located, notably the Karish field. Israel continues to extract gas and oil from this field despite the ongoing war in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
According to the Israelis, the destruction of this drone was carried out in coordination between air and naval forces. The video released by the Israeli army shows a significant explosion upon the drone’s destruction. This raises questions as to whether the drone was equipped with explosives targeting the Karish field. If that had been the case, the war between Israel and Lebanon could have escalated dramatically. Was this Hezbollah’s intention?
Some reports suggest that this drone was of the "Hudhud" type and was sent on an additional reconnaissance mission towards the Karish field to film and send a message to the Israelis: this field, along with other Israeli oil installations, is within Hezbollah’s reconnaissance and firing range. If this was the case, one might consider the mission a failure, although Hezbollah had previously succeeded in using the "Hudhud" for reconnaissance at the port of Haifa, in the Golan region, and at the Israeli air base of Ramat David.
This is not the first time Hezbollah sends drones into the Israeli maritime economic zone. During the negotiations for delineating maritime borders, it repeatedly threatened to take military action against the Karish field if the negotiations failed. Consequently, in July 2022, it sent drones towards Karish, but they were also shot down. The negotiations continued and led to an agreement about three months after this incident, on October 31, 2022.
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