Israel’s shooting down of an unmanned pilotless aircraft on Shabbos October 6, 2012 was covered by the international media, albeit lacking some of the details surrounding the event.

At about 10:00 on shabbos morning, the Patriot missile battery detection system in the Haifa area detected the unidentified aircraft over the Mediterranean in the Gaza area, heading into Israel.

In keeping with protocol, F16 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the plane. Lt.-Colonel S., a squadron leader, was in the base shul davening when alerted to report to his aircraft. Within minutes the F16s were in the air, taking off from their Negev air base.

The pilots were well-aware that at this stage, it was too early to determine if the craft was an enemy plane, for they were aware that Saturday mornings is a favorite time for amateur pilots in Israel to take to the skies in their private planes and more than likely, one of them strayed off of course. Nevertheless, protocol demands treating each invasion of air space with the utmost concern and that is what was taking place as they headed towards the location of the unmanned craft.

The fighter planes monitored the drone for about 30 minutes before the command was given to down it, over the Southern Hebron Hills area, the Yatir Forest to be a bit more specific. Military officials were on hand to close off the area and collect the parts of the aircraft for analysis.

The fighter planes controlled the situation in a matter of minutes, and for reasons which are not being disclosed, the decision was made to permit the craft to remain airborne for a half hour. One presumed reason is the fact it was not heading south to the Dimona nuclear facility as Hizbullah TV reported occurred, and another, the air force preferred downing it over an unpopulated area to minimize injury below.

To those questioning how Israel permitted the drone to send information back to Iran for 30 minutes, the experts are stating unofficially that anything visible to the drone can be picked up by anyone using Google Maps so there was no security compromise as Hizbullah wishes the world to understand.

Interestingly, the timing of the incident compels one to look back 23 years ago, when there was actually an air defense failure. A Syrian MiG 23 infiltrated Israeli air space and landed in the Megiddo area before anyone knew what was taking place. In this case however it was not an offensive or intelligence mission, but a Syrian pilot seeking political asylum in Israel.

In fact, there is no official confirmation of the drone being Iranian, or perhaps from Hizbullah. Reports indicate it was not extremely advanced and the pilotless craft was not broadcasting a live feed back to its handler. It was not armed with an explosive, the unofficial reports add.

Military correspondent Chaggai Huber reports that in August 2006, fighter jets downed two pilotless aircraft sent by Hizbullah. They were Iranian manufactured aircraft and they were detected by the air force’s northern early warning system. One was downed north of Haifa and the second in Lebanese territory, over the Mediterranean. In November 2004 another Hizbullah aircraft infiltrated Israeli airspace, hovering and photographing the northern area for about a quarter of an hour, crashing into the Mediterranean.

There was another infiltration in 2005, and that drone was above the area between Nahariya and Akko, eventually landing safely in S. Lebanon. There was another in December 2010, an unidentified balloon over southern Israel. It was downed as it approached the Dimona reactor area.

According to an el-Arabia report, the last drone downed by Israel was Iranian built, adding it succeeded in photographing the Dimona facility, a claim that is nothing less than absurd if one considers it flight path until it was downed over the Yatir Forest, but nevertheless, the report feeds the propaganda machine.

It is entirely possible the drone was dispatched towards evaluating the IAF response, to see just how far the pilotless aircraft can travel prior to detection and being downed. This too would provide information to Israel’s enemies. Senior officials are not ruling out the possibility that this was another in the growing number of fronts used by Hizbullah and Iran to strike out at Israel, as many of these unmanned aircraft are capable of carrying bombs and weaponry – hence the test to determine the response by the IAF.

Two days following the incident, on October 8, 2012, the IDF positioned another Patriot battery in the Camel area. The IDF played down the move, explaining the Patriot batteries routinely move to different areas around the country. The unit deployed in Haifa was set into position last April, as was the case during the Second Lebanon War when the northern area was under heavy attack.

What is certain is that the air force and intelligence community are studying the latest aerial infiltration towards determining if there was a failure by any or all of the agencies mentioned and if that was the case, what corrective actions are required.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)