Lebanese soldiers go on alert after Israel rolls out border barbed wire
Lebanese soldiers have gone on alert after Israeli troops rolled out barbed wire along the border.
Israeli troops yesterday laid 200 metres of wire on the edge of the southern village of Mays Al Jabal, the Lebanese National News Agency said.
Lebanese soldiers protested and called on UN peacekeepers to tell Israeli troops standing nearby to push the wire several metres back.
Two weeks ago Israel claimed to have exposed Hezbollah attack tunnels dug from Lebanon.
Israel’s army said on Sunday it had uncovered another Hezbollah attack tunnel running from Lebanon into its territory, the fourth since it started a search-and-destroy operation this month. The Israeli military said it placed explosives in the tunnel as part of an open-ended operation to identify and destroy them. The explosives are also laid in tunnels to stop militants entering.
Israel says the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group has dug the infiltration tunnels to use in a future conflict.
The latest tunnel crossing into northern Israel was exposed at the weekend, the army said. It refused to give the exact location, stressing the tunnel did not “pose an imminent threat”.
On December 4, the army announced an operation called Northern Shield to destroy tunnels.
Israel fought a devastating war against Hezbollah in 2006 that was halted by a UN-brokered truce. Hezbollah is the only group in Lebanon not to have disarmed after the country’s civil war between 1975 and 1990.
“The Lebanese government is held accountable for the attack tunnels dug from Lebanese territory,” the Israeli military said on Sunday.
“This is another blatant breach of UN Resolution 1701 and of Israeli sovereignty,” it added, referring to the resolution ending the 2006 war.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon and the international community should do more to curb Hezbollah’s “acts of aggression against Israel”.
The UN force has verified the existence of two of the tunnels that Israel has exposed so far.