An Israeli military ship in operation in the Mediterranean. (Photo taken from the official website of the Israeli army)
The claim:
A "suspect Lebanese ship drifting towards Israeli shores" was reportedly targeted on Tuesday by the Israeli military while it was off the "buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon," opposite the Lebanese village of Ras al-Naqoura and its Israeli counterpart Rosh Hanikra.
The incident allegedly triggered an "alert" in northern Israel and mobilized the Israeli naval forces, who "quickly took measures to neutralize what they considered a potential threat."
Who is behind the claim?
The information was reported by the Israeli site Walla news on Wednesday afternoon. The outlet's article stated that the boat in question was a "yacht" and relied on a "statement" allegedly released by the Israeli military following its intervention to support the account of the incident. A video showing Israeli naval forces targeting an unidentified target at sea was also attached to the article.
"The army's surveillance systems detected an unidentified suspicious vessel drifting near the maritime border between the two countries. The Israeli navy was immediately deployed on site to assess the situation ... After attempts to contact the vessel, it was confirmed to be unoccupied, and the suspect ship was sunk," the article said, quoting the statement, which specified that the incident caused "concern among residents of the region, in northern Israel."
Key context/the actual facts:
After verifying the origin of said Israeli military statement, it appears that it was not – or no longer – available on the Israeli army's X account, nor on its official website, in English and Hebrew, where there was no trace of this operation against any vessel that allegedly wandered near Israeli territorial waters.
The video included in the Walla news publication, appearing to be images from the said operation, dated to February 2024. It actually shows the interception of a drone launched by Houthi rebels from Yemen off the Israeli locality of Eilat, in the Gulf of Aqaba, in the Red Sea.
Contacted by L'Orient Today, the Lebanese army had 'no information' about a Lebanese ship recently destroyed by the Israeli military. A similar response was received from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), whose headquarters in Naqoura is located a few cables from the supposed strike location. "Two Israeli army boats fired [on Tuesday] flare shells and a few machine gun bursts towards Lebanese waters from Israeli waters. We have not detected the presence of any Lebanese boats," Andrea Tenenti, the spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeepers, told L'Orient Today.
Also reached by phone, Naqoura's mukhtar (Sour), Mohammad Awada, also denied the existence of such an event. "I haven't heard of anything like that. If a boat had been destroyed off the coast of Ras el-Naqoura, we would have seen it. We heard the sound of Israeli gunfire that day, but we did not see any explosions," he stated.
No other Israeli media has published this information so far.
The maritime border delineation between Lebanon and Israel was subject to an agreement between Beirut and Tel Aviv in October 2022, which has not prevented Israel from entering Lebanese territorial waters multiple times during the war with Hezbollah.
The surroundings of Naqoura have been regularly targeted by the Israeli military since October 2023, even after the cease-fire agreement went into effect on Nov. 27, 2024. The most recent attack in the area was on March 5, when an Israeli drone targeted a car on the road connecting Naqoura to Ras al-Naqoura, injuring two brothers who are residents of the border village.
In summary:
We have deduced that this information is false.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.