JERUSALEM

A Hezbollah drone was suspected of infiltrating northern Israel and filming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home in Caesarea, reported the daily Israel Hayom on Sunday.

Netanyahu and his family usually spend their weekends at their private residence in Caesarea, located 37 km south of Haifa on the Mediterranean coast.

According to Israel Hayom, a missile ship of the Israeli Navy stationed off the coast in Caesarea reported on Friday that a suspected drone was hovering in the area.

The newspaper speculated that the drone was launched by Hezbollah to capture footage of Netanyahu's home.

The drone was detected by the missile ship's radar, but it was not picked up by other control systems. Despite alerts, fighter jets sent to the area could not locate the drone.

The Israeli army suspects it may have been a false alarm, noting that radar systems sometimes issue false warnings, even for flocks of birds. However, the Israeli army has not completely ruled out the possibility of a small drone launched from Lebanon.

Netanyahu's office, in response to the report, stated that it was a "false alarm" and clarified that the Prime Minister was not at his Caesarea home at the time.

Hezbollah has previously released footage taken by its Hodhod drone showing Israeli military bases and critical infrastructure in northern Israel.

Fears have grown of a full-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah amid an exchange of cross-border attacks especially after the July 30 assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.

The escalation comes against the backdrop of a deadly Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has killed nearly 40,100 people since last October, since an attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi