CTECH
The complex reality in the skies of the north, in the shadow of the increasing threat of UAVs that Hezbollah launches daily from Lebanon, was reflected in the incident last Thursday near Shlomi. The fighters of the Sky Rider unit of the artillery corps launched a UAV to scan the area and provide tactical visual intelligence necessary for the forces on alert near the border. The Israeli aircraft, a Skylark UAV from Elbit Systems, was mistakenly detected by the Air Force’s air defense system as a hostile UAV launched by Hezbollah. A Tamir missile from an Iron Dome battery turned it into a mass of fragments within seconds.
This was not the first time in the ongoing conflict in the north that an Israeli intercept missile was directed at an Israeli air target mistakenly identified as a “hostile aircraft” from Hezbollah. The IDF has not released data on the full extent of similar incidents since the beginning of the fighting in the northern skies. According to senior officers, such false identifications have already brought down several UAVs of the Sky Rider unit, and in other cases, have also cost the lives of quite a few cranes in the middle of the migration season. “It happens that we shoot at flocks of birds that raise the suspicion of enemy aircraft infiltration due to the combination of altitude, flight speed, and low radar signature,” admits a senior officer in a conversation with Calcalist. “And when there is doubt, we launch Iron Dome interceptors,” the price of one of which is estimated at $50,000.
