An anti-aircraft missile was fired Thursday at an Israeli drone over Lebanon, the Israeli army said, adding that the unmanned aircraft was not hit.

"A short while ago, an anti-aircraft missile was launched over Lebanese territory towards an IDF (Israeli army) UAV. The UAV was not hit," the military said in a statement posted on Twitter. It gave no further details.

Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah said it had "repelled" a drone that flew over south Lebanon, using "appropriate weapons and forcing it to leave".

Israel is technically at war with Lebanon and in recent weeks tensions spiked between the two neighbours after two drones packed with explosives targeted Hezbollah's stronghold of south Beirut in August.

Earlier this month, the Lebanese army accused Israel of having sent a reconnaissance drone over the same area.

Hezbollah is represented in Lebanon's government and parliament but is considered a terrorist organisation by Israel and Washington.

Like its key backer Iran, it has supported Damascus throughout the war in neighbouring Syria, where Israel has regularly carried out strikes to prevent Iranian-linked forces gaining a foothold.

Hezbollah vowed to take down Israeli drones overflying Lebanon following the August incident, and on September 9 claimed it had downed and seized one.

The Israeli army confirmed that one of its devices "fell" in Lebanon, but it has not commented on the August 25 incident.

US Interior Department grounds Chinese-made drones
Washington (AFP) Nov 1, 2019 - The US Department of the Interior has grounded its fleet of Chinese-made drones as it conducts a review of the program.

Nick Goodwin, an Interior Department spokesman, did not provide a reason for the decision but it comes amid US security concerns over Chinese electronics.

Goodwin said the review had been ordered by Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt.

"Until this review is completed, the Secretary has directed that drones manufactured in China or made from Chinese components be grounded," he said.

Exceptions would be made for drones that are being used for emergency purposes such as fighting wildfires, search and rescue, and dealing with natural disasters, Goodwin said.

According to sources familiar with the program, the Interior Department has a fleet of 810 drones, almost all built by Chinese companies.

Only 24 are US-made and even those have Chinese electronic components, the sources said.

The US Department of Homeland Security issued a warning in May that Chinese-made drones could pose a security risk.

The United States has also taken steps against China's Huawei by effectively banning American companies from selling or transferring US technology to the Chinese telecoms giant.

US intelligence believes Huawei is backed by the Chinese military and that its equipment could provide Beijing's spy agencies with a backdoor into the communications networks of other countries.

The Chinese company DJI produces about 70 percent of the world's commercial drones.

"We're very disappointed," a DJI spokeswoman told AFP, adding that the company had no other comment for now.

The Pentagon has banned the military from using DJI drones for security reasons since 2017.

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Swarm of tiny drones explores unknown environments
Delft, Netherlands (SPX) Oct 24, 2019
Researchers have presented a swarm of tiny drones that can explore unknown environments completely by themselves. This work, presented in Science Robotics on 23 October, forms a significant step in the field of swarm robotics. The challenge comes from the fact that the tiny 33-gram drones need to navigate autonomously while having extremely limited sensing and computational capabilities. The joint research team - with researchers from TU Delft, University of Liverpool and Radboud University of Nij ... read more