Iran is in possession of data transmitted by an unmanned Hizbullah drone that overflew “restricted” sites and bases in Israel this month, an Iranian defense official said.
The drone “transmitted live data, photographing sensitive Israeli bases,” the chair of the Iranian parliament’s defense commission, Esmaeel Kosari, told Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam television.
“The photos of restricted areas are in Iran’s possession,” he said in an interview broadcast on Sunday night and quoted by AFP.
Israel’s air force shot down the unarmed drone on October 6 over the Negev desert after it entered the country’s airspace from the Mediterranean Sea.
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasted several days later that his organization sent the drone over Israel, saying the device was “Iranian built and assembled in Lebanon.”
“It overflew sensitive and important installations for dozens of kilometers until the enemy spotted it near (the nuclear site) Dimona,” Nasrallah said without identifying the installations.
Iran confirmed Nasrallah’s claim, and scoffed at Israel’s air defenses.
“Zionists must expect hundreds of other drones in 25 different models with new flying systems that they won’t know how to confront them,” said the Commander of the Basij Forces Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi.
Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the drone flight “shattered everything that was said about the Iron Dome system” — Israel’s air defense shield.
Speaking to Al-Alam on Sunday, Kosari also echoed a claim by Vahidi earlier in the day that Iran had more advanced drone than the one Hizbullah used.
“Iran currently possesses unmanned aircraft which have more advanced technology than the drone that Hizbullah forces recently flew over the Zionist regime’s airspace,” Vahidi told reporters on Sunday.
“Unfair Western sanctions have no effect on boosting the defense and deterrent prowess of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added.
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