"They can protest for as long as they like. Our reconnaissance flights will continue," deputy defence minister Ephraim Sneh said in response to a question about the fierce international criticism of the flights.
His comments come a day after the UN and France, which commands the UN peacekeeping force overseeing a truce that ended this summer's war between the Jewish state and the Hizbullah, called on Israel to halt the overflights which they said were a violation of the cease-fire.
On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes carried out intensive mock air raids at low altitude over Beirut and south Lebanon.
The overflights were concentrated over the capital's impoverished Shia southern suburbs that were devastated by the war, police said.
In the south, where the French-commanded peacekeeping force is policing the cease-fire resolution that came into force on August 14, the warplanes also carried out low-altitude mock raids, police said.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006