The Israeli Occupation Army announced that it had intercepted a "small plane" over the Gaza Strip, and explosions were heard near the border with the Strip.
"The air defense fighters were able to intercept a flying object in the sky of the Gaza Strip," said a brief statement issued by the Israeli army on Saturday. "This is not a missile launch."
The occupation army stressed that it was not a missile or projectile that posed a danger to the Israelis, explaining that the sounds were not caused by a "propelled launch".
A spokesman for the Israeli occupation army, Avichai Adraee, stated on his Twitter account that "the Israeli Air Defense Forces intercepted an aerial piece in the sky of the Gaza Strip," and that "the talk is not about firing a missile," without giving further details.
And before the occupation army's statement was issued, the Israeli Channel 13 said that the army had activated the Iron Dome system in the Gaza periphery area, as there were suspicions of shooting down a drone launched from the Gaza Strip.
The Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported that the residents of the city of Sderot reported hearing a strong explosion in the area after the Iron Dome defense system launched an interception missile.
None of the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza claimed responsibility for launching the plane, which the occupation army spoke of intercepting.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced for the first time in 2014 that it would operate a reconnaissance plane called "Ababil 1", and later revealed that it would develop models of it later.
Israeli warplanes launched raids on the Gaza Strip last Thursday, targeting sites of the resistance factions, in response to the firing of rockets from the Strip.