Army failure allows Iranian drone to overfly more than half of Israel

Richard Silverstein blogs:

Israeli jets down the drone

The IDF displayed yet another embarrassing failure in defending the homeland yesterday regarding the Iranian drone launched under the auspices of Hezbollah from Lebanon.  Yediot’s Alex Fishman, one of the few forthright Israeli defense reporters notes (print only) that the aerial vehicle was allowed to fly over Israeli airspace for 20 minutes before it was downed.  If you take into account IDF spokesperson Avital Leibovich’s claim that the army was tracking the drone for 20 minutes, that means it hadn’t a clue about the drone until it crossed into Israeli airspace.  Imagine the most advanced army in the Middle East cannot track a slow-moving drone launched from Lebanon and flown for a long distance over the Mediterranean.  Among the Israeli sites it overflew were population centers and military bases.  It was only 18 miles (he calls it “spitting distance”) from Dimona when it was felled.  Several years ago, a Hezbollah balloon flew directly over Dimona before it too was shot down.  Note that this is supposed to be restricted airspace.
Fishman, whose IDF sources are excellent, reports that the drone was manufactured by the Iranian aviation industry and used Iranian technology.