Beirut: The Lebanese military opened fire with anti-aircraft batteries on an Israeli reconnaissance plane which violated the country's airspace on Sunday, the army said.
"The anti-aircraft batteries fired at an Israeli 'MK' type reconnaissance aircraft flying at low altitude in the southern sector, forcing it to turn back," it said in a statement.
Lebanon's military puts out near daily statements about Israeli violations of the country's airspace, but the aircraft are engaged only if they come within range of the ground batteries.
The United Nations considers such overflights to be a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which brought an end in 2006 to a brief but deadly war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters.
July 12 was the fourth anniversary of the start of the 33-day conflict which destroyed much of Lebanon's major infrastructure and killed more than 1,400 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
The Jewish state estimates that Hezbollah has an arsenal of 40,000 short- and medium-range rockets, held in towns and villages across the south - a significant rise from the 14,000 rockets held by the group in 2006.
It says the stockpile includes hundreds of longer-range rockets, some of them capable of reaching major Israeli population centres.
