An Israeli military drone was shot down by the Hezbollah terror group over southern Lebanon on Monday morning, amid ongoing border skirmishes and fears of a wider conflict.

Hezbollah in a statement said it had downed an Israeli Air Force drone, an Elbit Hermes 450 model, over the Nabatieh area in southern Lebanon with a surface-to-air missile.

Footage posted online showed the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on fire and spiraling out of control.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed shortly after that one of its UAVs was shot down over southern Lebanon.

It said in a statement that the David’s Sling medium-range air defense system successfully intercepted a surface-to-air missile fired by Hezbollah at an IDF drone, but a short while later a second missile struck the UAV.

“As a result, the aircraft fell in Lebanese territory,” the IDF said.

The Hermes 450, known in the military as Zik, is used by the IAF as a surveillance and attack drone.

The IDF’s interceptor missile launch set off sirens in an industrial zone near the northern city of Afula, due to fears of falling shrapnel despite the long distance to the Lebanon border.

Video circulating on social media showed a piece of shrapnel falling in the nearby town of Kfar Tavor, though there were no reports of damage or injuries in the area.

Hezbollah has attempted in recent years, including multiple times during the ongoing war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza, to target Israeli aircraft flying over Lebanon, largely without success. The IDF has also struck sites belonging to the terror group’s air defense unit during the ongoing fighting, in a bid to deprive Hezbollah of its anti-aircraft capabilities.

Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.

So far, the skirmishes on the border have resulted in six civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of ten IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 215 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 32 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and more than 30 civilians, three of whom were journalists, have been killed.

Israel has warned that it will no longer tolerate the presence of Hezbollah along the Lebanon frontier, where it could attempt to carry out an attack similar to the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7.

A failure of international diplomacy to force Hezbollah away from the border would necessitate an Israeli offensive, the country has said.