Lebanon to use Hezbollah in defense

Lebanon President Sleiman

Lebanon President Michel Sleiman says Hezbollah’s ability to send a drone over Israel shows the need for a new national defense strategy that uses the party’s strength in safeguarding the country.

“The process of dispatching a drone over Israeli enemy territory shows a dire need to approve a defense strategy that would look into the benefits of managing and making use of the resistance’s capabilities,” Sleiman said in a statement on Friday.

He added that Hezbollah’s potential should be used to “safeguard Lebanon and establish a mechanism for issuing a decision to use these capabilities exclusively and under any circumstances in line with national interests [of Lebanon] and the military's defense plans and needs.”

Sleiman’s comments came shortly after Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah confirmed that the Lebanese resistance movement has sent a drone deep into the Israeli airspace evading radar systems.

The operation code-named Hussein Ayub saw Hezbollah’s drone fly hundreds of kilometers into the Israeli airspace and getting very close to Dimona nuclear plant without being detected by advanced Israeli and US radars.

"This is only part of our capabilities," Nasrallah said on Thursday.

Sleiman noted that daily Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty was a matter “of continuous complaints” made by Lebanon to the UN Security Council.

Israel violates Lebanon's airspace on an almost daily basis, claiming the flights serve surveillance purposes.

Lebanon's government, the Hezbollah resistance movement, and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, have repeatedly condemned the overflights, saying they are in clear violation of UN Resolution 1701 and the country's sovereignty.