Local Editor

Two days after a reconnaissance aircraft succeeded in penetrating the "Israeli" depth, the mysterious plane still occupies both the "Israeli" media and security levels.

Several reports revealed Sunday that the drone was intercepted only 30 kilometers from "Israel's" Dimona reactor at the al-Naqab "Negev" Nuclear Research Center.
According to "Israeli" army Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, "Israeli" ground systems detected the drone Saturday morning, which flew over the Gaza Strip but did not originate there.

They alerted the air force, which scrambled fighter jets to intercept the aircraft. She said "Israel" was still trying to determine where the drone took off from.
The drone, which was downed near the "Yatir" Forrest close to the West Bank, had spent about 20 minutes in "Israeli" airspace, an "Israeli" military official said.
"Israeli" media published maps based on military "estimates" that claimed to show the route taken by the drone. The maps said the aircraft took off south of the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon, headed south and then turned east over the Gaza Strip and into "Israel".

"It's quite a long distance, indicating a high level of sophistication," said Shlomo Brom, a retired "Israeli" general who is now an analyst at the so-called "Institute for National Security Studies", an "Israeli" think tank.
Yiftah Shapir, another analyst at the INSS, said Saturday's incident may have been meant as a warning to "Israel". "The drone could be a message that they have the capability to pull this off, and do so perhaps with weapons," he said.

In parallel, "Israeli" war Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement that his entity views "this incident of attempting to enter "Israeli" airspace very severely and we will consider our response later."

For his part, "Israeli" Prime Minister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Tel Aviv "will continue to defend our borders in the sea, on the land and in the air for the security of the citizens of "Israel"."
According to "Israeli" Haaretz daily, ""Israel" was still investigating Saturday's incident, but Hizbullah quickly emerged as the leading suspect because it has an arsenal of sophisticated Iranian weapons and a history of trying to deploy similar aircraft."

In its Monday's edition the paper highlighted that "Israel" ruled out the Gaza Strip as the origin of such planes.
"That left Hizbullah as the most likely culprit and suggested the drone may have flown with the blessing of Iran."
"It is an Iranian drone that was launched by Hizbullah," "Israeli" lawmaker Miri Regev, a former chief spokeswoman for the "Israeli" military, wrote on her Twitter feed.

Meanwhile, "Israeli" Ynet newspaper stressed that "the bad news is that the drone, which apparently departed from Lebanon, flew over the sea for at least three hours, and did not raise enough suspicion in "Israel" until it approached Gaza's coastline."

"This may indicate a technological or protocol problem, or perhaps a lack of alertness," it added.

The daily also mentioned that "the drone's interception should remind
"Israel" citizens of what army intelligence has known all along: The other side is constantly looking for ways to infiltrate the country, for weak points, and it is preparing what [The Secretary General of Hizbullah His Eminence Sayyed Hassan]Nasrallah referred to as a "surprise weapon" - a weapon that will infiltrate deeper into "Israeli" territory, a weapon that is meant to rattle the State of "Israel's" nerves."

Source: "Israeli" media, Edited by moqawama.org