Hizbullah Chief Hassan Nasrallah will discuss rumors of a Lebanese drone over Israel in a televised appearance on Thursday, according to Lebanese daily Naharnet.

Nasrallah have a televised appearance on Thursday to discussed current issues on the Lebanese and regional scenes, including rumors of a Lebanese drone crossing into Israeli airspace.

A drone was shot down over Israeli airspace on Shabbat.  Military officials originally indicated that the aircraft may have been sent by Hizbullah.

Hizbullah radicals have been joining up with soldiers loyal to Syrian president Bashar Assad in a hot civil war which has claimed the lives of an estimated 32,000 people in the last year and a half.

With the military jumpy over the incursion of an enemy drone deep into Israeli airspace on Saturday, the IAF is taking no chances when they see something unusual on their radar screens, which are apparently now set at their highest sensitivity levels.

Around 5:00 AM on Wednesday morning, IAF fighter jets were scrambled over Ben Gurion Airport after IAF radar systems detected an unidentified flying object over the airport. All international flights were put on hold, and landing planes had to switch to a holding pattern as the fighter jets checked everything out.

Galei Tzahal reports that the all-clear was given a few minutes later and the planes were allowed to land.

There’s no report as to what the radar had detected.

This is the second time the IAF has scrambled fighter jets since Saturday. Earlier in week, they sent jets over Beit Shemesh, but that turned out to be nothing.

An IDF source is saying that the army would prefer to be more careful and not take extra chances.

Also, it turns out that Saturday’s F-16 had to launch two anti-aircraft missiles at the drone in order to shoot it down because of the drone’s low heat signature prevented a good lock the first time.

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The official statement by the IDF is laconic:

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was identified penetrating Israeli airspace this morning, and was intercepted by the IAF at approximately 10:00 AM. IDF soldiers are currently searching the area where the drone was downed, in open areas in the northern Negev, to locate and identify the drone.

That’s the whole report.

News agencies add additional minor details but the large questions remain unanswered for the moment. China’s Xinhua news service says the unidentified drone flew over settlements and military bases in southern Israel briefly before being brought down by IDF fire over an open unpopulated area. It was spotted entering Israel’s airspace from the Mediterranean sea heading from the west to the east. But there is no word on where the UAV originated.

The Daily Mail‘s website, published in the UK says this is not the first incident in which Israel has shot down drones entering its airspace:

The Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah has launched several such aircraft into Israel over the past few years. In the 2006 war, Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made drone capable of carrying explosives into Israel that was shot down. Another one launched two years earlier crashed in the Mediterranean.

The Mail also quotes the IDF’s military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, saying no one was injured in the process of bringing down this morning’s drone, and that Israeli ground systems alerted the air force to its presence, as a result of which IDF jets were given the order to scramble and intercept it. The Israeli air force “was in control throughout… We had monitoring contact from the ground and from the air.” She said the drone flew over the Gaza Strip but did not originate there and declined to give more details. But Israel media reports have suggested this was an intelligence gathering drone and was not carrying explosives.

Times of Israel publishes video footage of the IDF bringing down the drone, and says the army is considering “the possibility that it originated in Lebanon. Hezbollah has flown drones into Israeli airspace a few times in the past, though not for several years“.

Back in April 2012, the daily Yediot Aharonot reported that the terrorists of Lebanon’s Hezbollah have

been allocating increased resources towards bolstering its drone unit… The Shiite terror groups reportedly plans to use its unmanned aerial vehicle to attack Israel in case it mounts a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Hezbollah is equipped with Ababil (“Swallow”) drones, which are manufactured and provided by Iran.The Ababil has several models, including one that can carry a warhead packed with several dozens of kilograms of explosives. Defense establishment officials expressed concern that Hezbollah would be able to send multiple drones into Israel’s airspace and have them crash into targets in the country’s north. “Hezbollah is making a specific effort to acquire such (weapons) as part of its offensive lineup against Israel,” a security source told Yedioth Ahronoth.

The Lebanon Daily Star reported that a Hezbollah drone crash-landed inside Lebanon in July. As far back as 2006, the IDF brought one of those Ababil drones down in the sea off the northern Israeli city of Akko [report].

A website called Arkenstone ["a comprehensive, open source, English-language database on the Iranian armed forces"] gives more background about Iranian drones. Keep in mind we still don’t know the source of today’s drone. And for the moment (it’s 7:45 pm Saturday night here in Jerusalem) there are no reports about this that we can see in the online Iranian media.

Finally, a reminder from the BBC World Service that

Iran has unveiled what it says is a new “indigenous” long-range unmanned drone capable of flying over most of the Middle East, state media report. The Shahed (Witness) 129 had a range of 2,000km (1,240 miles) and could be equipped with bombs and missiles, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said. It is reportedly capable of carrying out reconnaissance and combat missions.

There are certain to be more details in the coming hours.

Visit This Ongoing War.

Speculation and rumor are rife in Israel as the question is asked, “Whose drone was it?”

Part of what is driving the rumor mill is the minimally released information from the IDF, the very serious question of how the drone flew so long over Israel uncontested, and what appears to be a leaked IDF photo that censored some markings on the UAV which may have indicated who may have either built or sent it.

The mainstream explanation is that the drone was sent by Iran via Hezbollah in Lebanon to spy on Dimona or to test Israel’s defenses.

A former Lebanese general said on Iranian TV that the UAV was an American drone that may have lost its way.

One Israeli rumor-monger said the drone was American made, and of the kind that may have been sold to Egypt.

On  Sunday morning, the Lebanese TV channel “Al Meyadin’, which is associated with Hezbollah, claimed the UAV was launched and controlled by Hezbollah.

The IDF still hasn’t said if the drone was remote-controlled or using a pre-programmed path and a GPS.

But the IDF should know the answers to at least some of these important questions already, so once it decides to release the information to the public, at least some of the rumors will go away.

What follows next is a decision on how Israel will react to the enemy incursion, once the enemy is identified.

On Saturday at 10 AM, the IDF control systems identified a penetration by an unmanned aircraft from the Mediterranean, entering over Gaza, into the south of Israel.

The drone was under continuous surveillance from the air and the ground upon entering Israeli airspace, including an escort from IAF fighter jets, as it traveled some 100 kilometers over Israel.

The drone was shot down by an F-16 (“Sufa”) with an anti-aircraft missile, in the area of Yatir forest in the northern Negev (the south Mount Hebron area), in order to prevent damage to populated areas.

IDF forces are collecting fragments of the aircraft to try to identify with certainty its origin and mission.

It is now believed that the drone was launched from Lebanon and traveled south until it turned into Israel. That could mean it was controlled by Hezbollah or Iran.

IDF Spokesperson Yoav Mordechai said the drone was being tracked the entire time it was over Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu praised the IDF’s actions and said, “We will continue to defend our borders at sea, on land and in the air to secure Israel’s citizens.”

MK Miri Regev (Likud) wrote on her Facebook page that the drone was an Iranian drone launched by Hezbollah.

MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) is saying the traversal of the drone over Israeli airspace for nearly a half hour was a significant security failure.

An organization in Israel wants to use unmanned aerial vehicles to check the national eruv in problematic spots.

The Shabbat Fund has placed a proposal on the table to purchase the UAVs at a cost of more than $6,000 per drone, the Bechadrei Charedim website reported.

The drone could save manpower hours and get to hard-to-reach places such as farmland and privately owned lands in order to detect breaches in the eruv, according to the fund.

An eruv creates a boundary that allows observant Jews to carry items in public areas on Shabbat.

A member of the fund told Bechadrei Charedim that it is still too early to “rejoice” at the prospect.

“We are still checking,” he said. “We have not seen yet the product, nor have we checked its efficacy.”

The Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that an Israeli military surveillance zeppelin crashed near the Gaza Strip after a civilian crop duster struck its cable.

The balloon, used for observing Gaza from above, crashed Friday on Israel’s side of the border.

There were no reports of injury after the incident.

In January, an unmanned aerial drone crashed in central Israel during a drill. Two years earlier, a reconnaissance drone crashed in the Gaza Strip and was recovered during an incursion. Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades seized a smaller drone in 2007.