The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday thwarted an attempt to smuggle weapons and ammunition into the country from Egypt via a drone.
“The drone was shot down by IDF forces who arrived at the scene and located the drone [along with] with weapons and ammunition,” the army said. “The confiscated weapons were transferred to the security forces.”
On Jan. 29, the military’s 512th “Paran” Infantry Brigade downed a UAV carrying 13 assault rifles with ammunition that had crossed into Israel from Egypt.
On Nov. 27, the IDF shot down another drone carrying weapons and ammo and crossed from Egyptian territory into the western Negev.
The UAV “was shot down by the forces of the Paran Brigade’s 33rd ‘Caracal’ Infantry Battalion, who arrived at the scene and discovered four rifles, five magazines and hundreds of bullets on the drone,” the military stated at the time.
On Oct. 30, four rifles and a handgun were found after soldiers downed yet another drone that had crossed from Egypt. The previous week, eight handguns with magazines were discovered at another UAV crash site.
The civilian security chief of Kibbutz Kerem Shalom near the Gaza Strip told Channel 14 last year that the IDF had blocked more than 30 attempts to smuggle weapons via unmanned aerial vehicles.