Israeli drone fell in south Beirut suburbs, second drone exploded

An Israeli drone fell in the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut and a second one exploded near the ground on Sunday, a Hezbollah official told Reuters, in the first such incident in more than a decade.

The Israeli military said it does not comment on foreign reports.

The second drone caused some damage when it crashed before dawn close to Hezbollah’s media center in the Dahyeh suburbs of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, the Hezbollah official said. It came hours after the Israeli military said its aircraft struck Iranian forces and Shi’ite militias near Syria’s capital Damascus.

Residents in Dahyeh said they had heard the sound of a blast. A witness said the army closed off the streets in one neighborhood where a fire had started. No other information was immediately available.

Israel deems the heavily armed Shi’ite Hezbollah movement, backed by Iran, as the biggest threat across its border. They fought a month-long war in 2006 that killed nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 158 people in Israel, mostly soldiers.

Lebanon has complained to the United Nations about Israeli planes regularly violating the country’s airspace in recent years.

Israel has grown alarmed by the rising influence of its regional foe Iran during the war in neighboring Syria, where Tehran and Hezbollah provide critical military help to Damascus. Israel says its air force has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria against what it calls Iranian targets and arms transfers to Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes in Syria on Saturday thwarted a planned Iranian attack in Israel. Syrian state media said air defenses confronted the “aggression” and the army said most of the Israeli missiles were destroyed.