Israel's defence ministry has announced it foiled an attempt by Hamas
to smuggle commercial quadcopter drones armed with HD cameras into Gaza
for the purpose of surveillance.
In recent weeks, Israel's
security agency Shin Bet, the Ministry of Defense Crossings Authority,
the Israel Police, the Customs Authority and the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF) have been working together to intercept multiple shipments of
drones hidden among seemingly innocuous items that are routinely taken
via truck into the Gaza Strip, according to the Jerusalem Post.
During the latest attempt, Crossings Authority inspectors stopped an Israeli truck laden with toys at the Kerem Shalom Crossing. Located in the middle of large pallets of toy cars, tractors and dolls were commercial drones of various sizes from multiple different brands, and all of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) featured high-quality on-board cameras.
Although
Gaza could just have a lot of drone enthusiasts, the Crossings
Authority said the drones were meant to be used by "terrorist elements
in Gaza" in order to gather intelligence about the movements of the IDF.
The
joint task force has now launched an investigation to track down the
ringleaders of the smuggling network responsible for smuggling the
drones. Please like and follow!