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Israel Interceptor Missile Shoots Down Drone At Syrian Frontier


A picture taken on April 14, 2018 shows an Israeli Iron Dome defence system, designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, deployed in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria.
A picture taken on April 14, 2018 shows an Israeli Iron Dome defence system, designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, deployed in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria.
JERUSALEM, July 13 (Reuters) -

Israel's military said it had fired a missile at a drone that approached from Syria on Friday, and a witness on the Syrian side of the frontier said the aircraft had been brought down.

The incident occurred two days after an Israeli Patriot missile downed what the Israeli military said was a pilotless and apparently unarmed Syrian reconnaissance aircraft near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel.

"A Patriot missile was launched towards a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) that approached from Syria," a military statement said about Friday's interception. It said more details would follow.

A witness on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights frontier said the aircraft had crashed.

Israel has been on alert as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces advance on rebels in the vicinity of the Golan Heights, much of which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and annexed, in a move not recognized internationally.

Israel worries that Assad could let his Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah reinforcements entrench near Israeli lines, or that Syrian forces may defy a 1974 Golan disengagement agreement.

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