A security source of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said on Sunday that they had "captured the Israeli drone that was flying over east Jabalia this morning."

On their Twitter account, the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, claimed “responsibility for shooting down the Israeli mini-drone.”

The Israeli army, however, denied the claim, saying a skylark tactical mini-drone has crashed in the Gaza Strip due to a technical malfunction.

Israel uses drones over the besieged Gaza Strip to collect intelligence, and occasionally to carry out airborne attacks that have claimed lives at times.

On July 14, Israeli military shot down one of its Hermes 450 drones over the Egyptian border due to a technical failure.

The flight operators noticed the breakdown moments after the flight, and decided to perform a controlled crash on the Israeli side of the border. Israeli security forces combed the region and collected the remains of the aircraft.

A similar incident occurred in May, when the Israeli regime shot down one of its Heron-class drones, known as Shovel, over the Mediterranean Sea following an engine malfunction.

Gaza blockade

Residents of Gaza are blockaded by land, sea and air by the Israeli regime forces.

The blockade is denying the Palestinian people access to medical supplies and food.

Hospitals face critical shortages, with 40 percent of all essential medicines at zero stock level, according to a report by the Canada-based Global Research.

Out of the 1.7 million Palestinians living in Gaza 54 percent are food-insecure including 428,000 children.

Israel’s illegal blockade has also led to a massive shortage of building materials to repair the homes, hospitals, schools and water/sanitation infrastructure that have been destroyed/damaged by the regime in the last 5 years.

Most of Gaza’s water supplies are polluted and unsafe to drink. There are power cuts every day as well.

The International Red Cross and the United Nations have found the Israeli regime’s siege of Gaza to be illegal under international law.

In September 2011, five independent UN rights experts made a report to the UN Human Rights Council which said that Israel’s siege of Gaza amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian people and was a “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law” under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Prominent political thinker Noam Chomsky has described the Gaza Strip as “the world’s largest open air prison.”

SHI/SHI