Israel shot down a Syrian military spy drone near the border on Saturday, the Israeli military said.
The Israeli military shot down the reconnaissance drone with a Patriot interceptor missile as it crossed into the Golan demilitarized zone, headed toward Israel.
“The State of Israel regards with utmost seriousness any violation of its sovereignty and will respond with force to any provocation,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement.
The military confirmed that the unmanned aerial vehicle was not an attack drone, and that it would investigate whether the drone had ties to Iran or Hezbollah.
The Golan area, which has separated Israel from Syria since a cease-fire deal following the 1973 war, has seen some spill-over violence from the Syrian civil war since 2011.
In September, Syria’s army said Israeli warplanes hit one of its positions, killing two people in an attack that a monitor group said targeted a site where the regime allegedly produces chemical weapons.
Israel and Syria are still technically at war after Israel seized around 1,200 kilometers of land in the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six Day War of 1967. | via Voice of America
