Lebanon: Drones falling on the southern outskirts of Beirut were Israeli, according to the army

Beirut (AFP)

The two drones fell on Sunday at dawn in the southern suburbs of Beirut, stronghold of the pro-Iranian Shiite Hezbollah movement, were Israeli, said Sunday the Lebanese army.

The announcement came hours after the Israeli army accused an Iranian force in neighboring Syria of trying to attack with "killer drones" targets in northern Israel.

"Two drones belonging to the Israeli enemy violated Lebanese airspace (...) over the southern suburbs of Beirut, the first of which fell and the second exploded into the air causing material damage." the army said in a statement.

The Shiite Hezbollah movement had previously claimed that the explosion of the second drone had hit a media center of the Shiite movement, without confirming the identity of the two drones.

"The first drone fell without doing any damage while the second, charged with explosives, detonated, causing significant damage to the media center," a spokesman told the Lebanese news agency (ANI). from Hezbollah, Mohamed Afif.

The army said it had "cordoned off the area where the two drones had fallen" and "taken all the necessary measures, just like the military police who took charge of the investigation of the incident".

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who regularly warns Israel against attacks, is due to speak later in the day.

After hearing an explosion in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, an AFP correspondent found that Lebanese security forces formed a cordon around a perimeter near the Hezbollah media center to prevent hundreds of residents to approach.

Lebanon and its Israeli neighbor are still technically in a state of war. The most recent conflict dates back to the summer of 2006.

Beirut regularly accuses the Jewish state of violating its airspace with its planes or drones, and Israel regards Hezbollah as a "terrorist organization".

Questioned by AFP, the Israeli army refused to comment on the allegations of the Lebanese army.

It was reported on the night that it had conducted strikes in neighboring Syria to prevent an Iranian force from launching an attack against Israel with drones loaded with explosives.

The Israeli Air Force "was able to prevent an Iranian attempt by the al-Quds (elite Revolutionary Guardian elite unit) to carry out an attack from Syria against targets in northern Israel with killer drones, "spokesman Jonathan Conricus told reporters.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since the beginning of the war in that country in 2011, most targeting Iranian or Hezbollah targets according to the Jewish state.

Hezbollah militarily supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Tehran. Israel wants to prevent Iran from settling militarily in Syria in a sustainable way.

© 2019 AFP