The Israeli army and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon offered differing versions of an incident over the weekend in which UN peacekeepers shot down an Israeli drone.

The episode occurred amid intensified Israeli strikes across Lebanon, growing pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, and ongoing efforts to maintain a fragile ceasefire that ended last year’s Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

Israel’s current tensions with Hezbollah trace back to the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war. Hezbollah, primarily based in southern Lebanon, fired rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas and the Palestinians.

Israeli Arabic military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said Monday that the drone, while near UN peacekeeping forces in Kfar Kila along the southeastern border, was engaged in “routine information-gathering and reconnaissance” and did not target the troops. He added that after the drone was downed, Israeli forces threw a hand grenade in the area.

UNIFIL, the U.N. mission in southern Lebanon, gave a contrasting account Sunday, saying the Israeli drone flew over a patrol “in an aggressive manner,” prompting peacekeepers to take defensive action to neutralize it. The statement added that shortly afterward, an Israeli drone dropped a grenade near the mission, and an Israeli tank fired toward the peacekeepers. No personnel were injured.

UNIFIL was established to monitor Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon following the 1978 invasion, and its mandate expanded after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Earlier this year, the U.N. Security Council approved ending UNIFIL’s mandate on Dec. 31, 2026, giving the mission a year to conclude operations and withdraw personnel.

Source: AP