The head of the Center for Middle East Studies, a strategic and military expert, retired Brigadier General Hisham Jaber, revealed that “the Israeli airship “Sky Dew”, recently launched over southern Lebanon, has been put into service since the its launch, that is, on Sunday 7 January, and immediately began to spy and transmit the images”.
Jaber underlined, in an exclusive interview with Sky News Arabia, that “such balloons are used for purely military purposes, as they participate in espionage and defensive missions, with particular attention to monitoring and intelligence collection.”
The “Sky Duo” airship was developed by the Israeli Aerospace Industries Company, which supplied it with radar, and the American company that produced the airships, TECOM, and was delivered to the Israeli Air Force in 2022, according to Israeli media.
One of the balloon’s tasks is to detect drones and cruise missiles that might be launched from Iran or Syria, and any other small targets that are difficult to spot.
The launch of the balloon is part of the military escalation that has been ongoing for more than 3 months between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, on the border between Israel and Lebanon.
Jaber added: “The balloon is currently carrying out espionage missions in the region, after Hezbollah destroyed the spy cameras installed by Israel, especially in the eastern sector and in the area adjacent to the occupied Shebaa farms, and the radar in the strategic area of Jabal al-Jarmaq.”
He said: “Israel was expected to resort to other means of espionage after the operation, including this balloon.”
Jaber continued: “This balloon is supposed to be intended for surveillance and photography, and to send images directly to the operations room of the Israeli army, and it has already started to send images,” stressing that “it is not equipped with weapons or missiles. Rather , can monitor and take photos at a distance of 30 to 50 kilometers.” This means it can continuously monitor from the Naqoura point on the Lebanese-Israeli border to the city of Sidon, south of Beirut.”
He pointed out that “if the balloon moves over the Mediterranean Sea towards Sidon, it can monitor as far as Beirut and deep into the Lebanese hinterland,” stressing that “the lower its height, the more precise and clearer the images it will acquire.”
Jaber concluded: “Southern Lebanon has witnessed Israeli balloons more than once, and most of them were not advanced, but this last one is different, of course”, but “they can be shot down easily if they are low quota,” according to Jaber.
According to the head of the Lebanese human rights organization “Justia” and dean of the University of International Economics, Paul Morcos, “On the basis of customary international law and humanitarian law, the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, in the article 46, defines espionage that occurs during an international armed conflict as the collection of information carried out. “Secretly or under false pretenses,” which applies to the Israeli airship.
Morcos added to Sky News Arabia: “The International Committee of the Red Cross indicates that espionage is the collection or attempt to collect information in territories controlled by an enemy party, through an act carried out on the basis of false accusations or intentionally in secret. manner.”
He continued: “Espionage violates the principle of sovereignty and the rule of non-interference of States in the internal affairs of States, and is therefore contrary to international law.”
Morcos believed that “State sovereignty also extends to territorial seas under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to national airspace under the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention).”
The international human rights expert added: “The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations explicitly prohibit countries from carrying out espionage against diplomatic and consular missions of source countries.”
But “while espionage that violates the sovereignty of another state may be against international law, other forms of espionage are officially permitted.”
Morcos explained: “International law allows obtaining satellite images of another country, based in part on the principle that the use of space is accessible to all, and the International Court of Justice raised this issue in the Military and Paramilitary Activity case in Nicaragua v. .the United States in 1986.”
He concluded: “The use of Skydew on Lebanese territory constitutes a violation of international law in general and international resolutions relating to Lebanon and the sovereignty of the Lebanese State.”
In a related context, the writer and political analyst Ali Hamadeh considered that this balloon “is the largest launched by Israel in the history of the Arab-Israeli wars, and its military importance lies in the fact that it covers large areas of the region, and is intended for electronic warfare, precise surveillance and battlefield sensing over long distances.
Hamada added in an interview with Sky News Arabia: “The balloon has great espionage capabilities, including radar and electronic means that it carries to cover the area of Syria and Lebanon, and is concentrated in places far from the borders and at high altitude”. altitudes so that it is not shot down.”
He continued: “According to information, this balloon is periodically returned to its starting point, lowered as weather conditions change and raised again to high altitude, while its importance becomes double in wartime, not only on the Lebanese border but also on the occupied Golan Heights, where the Israeli army expects “serial operations to take place from the Syrian border”.
2024-01-15 05:25:49
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