A small Israeli surveillance drone crashed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday after experiencing a technical malfunction, the Israel Defense Forces said. The IDF said it was investigating what caused the Skylark drone, which belonged to the Artillery Corps, to go down. Hamas claimed that it had shot the drone down and taken it into possession. The IDF would not say whether any classified information or technology had slipped into Hamas' hands, but military officials noted that the Skylark has safeguards to prevent disclosure of information to unauthorized personnel. It was the second time in the past six months that a Skylark has crashed in the Gaza region. In May, a Skylark went down near the Gaza border after communications with it were lost for an unknown reason. Last October, a Skylark crashed in Samaria. Skylarks, manufactured by Elbit Systems, weigh only 7 kilograms (15 pounds) and are launched by hand by soldiers in the field. Skylarks are able to "see" 15 kilometers (9 miles) away and can remain in the air for around 2½ hours.
