Israeli civilian aircraft was mistakenly shot down, on Wednesday, when the Israeli troops mistook the aircraft as a hostile plane which was thought to have infiltrated from Syria.
An army spokeswoman said, on Thursday, that the troops, believing that the aircraft posed an imminent threat, fired at it until they realised it was an Israeli aircraft however no injuries were reported.
According to reports, the pilot involved in the incident said he was “a meter and a half away from disaster.”
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The pilot, who had the required permits for the flight, said that he felt a knock on one of the plane’s wings and at first thought it was a bird. He added that he then noticed that fuel was leaking from his aircraft.
“This is a serious incident which is being reviewed,” the army spokeswoman said.
Israel captured the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and have since occupied the territory in 1981, though this move has not been recognized internationally, other than by the US earlier in 2019.
Israel and Iran have always been staunch regional rivals ever since the Syrian civil war, Israel repeatedly launched airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria.
