Two Israeli F-15I 'Ra'am' fighter jets during maneuvers (CC BY-TSgt Kevin J. Gruenwald/USA/Wikimedia)
Residents of Tel Aviv and surrounding towns witnessed loud, low-flying maneuvers by Israel Air Force jets on Saturday morning when the planes scrambled to intercept what was initially believed to be an intrusion by enemy aircraft into Israel’s airspace.
The intruder, which turned out to be a flock of birds, was detected inside Israeli airspace shortly before 10 a.m. The surprise intrusion triggered alarms in Israel’s aerial detection systems, leading the Air Force to scramble fighters to intercept.
The slow-moving, weak radar signal given off by the birds led to concern among defense officials that the object might be a small unmanned drone.
The edge of the Yatir Forest, October 8, 2012, after a UAV was shot down by Israeli F-16s. (photo credit: Tsafrir Abayov/ Flash 90)
The fighters flew low over the towns of “Gush Dan” (the Dan Bloc), the Hebrew term for the Tel Aviv conurbation, leading to alarm and speculation among residents. The IDF rarely conducts training exercises on the Sabbath, so a Saturday deployment is usually thought to be a sign of imminent military action.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
The alert lasted only a few minutes. Once the pilots verified that the unidentified flying object was a tight-knit flock of birds, the Air Force announced a stand-down and the pilots were ordered back to base.
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this,please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
