Israel gave no proof of border tunnels: Lebanon
Israelis didn’t present any information at the meeting with army and UNIFIL: Speaker
BEIRUT: Israel provided no evidence of cross-border attack tunnels in a meeting with UN peacekeepers on Wednesday, Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said.
The Israeli military launched an operation on Tuesday on its side of the border to “expose and thwart” tunnels into its territory, which it said originated from Lebanon.
Israel accused Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement of digging across the common frontier, saying they did not function yet but posed “an imminent threat.”
There was no comment from Iranbacked Hizbollah.
“The Israelis did not present any information,” at the meeting with the Lebanese army and th eu nifil peace keeping force, a statement from Berri’ s of ice said, adding that geographic coordinates had been demanded but not received.
“This (Israeli accusation) is not based on any real facts at all,” Ali Bazzi, a lawmaker from Berri’s parliamentary bloc cited the speaker as saying after a meeting.
Mechanical diggers, drills and other heavy machinery were seen from south Lebanon throughout on Tuesday, working on the Israeli side of the heavily-guarded border.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Tuesday the operation would continue for as long as necessary.
Meanwhile, Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni accused Netanyahu on Wednesday of over-dramatising the army’s discovery of Hizbollah tunnels iniltrating its territory from Lebanon for political gain. Livni told public radio that while she and the rest of the opposition welcomed the army’s discovery of the tunnels and their eventual demolition, “the incident must be kept in proportion.”
“We are not now in a situation where our soldiers are behind enemy lines,” said Livni, who served as foreign minister during Israel’s 2006 war with Hizbollah.
“We are talking about engineering activity within the sovereign territory of the state of Israel,” she added, accusing Netanyahu of “blowing the incident out of proportion.”
Israel announced on Tuesday that it had discovered Hizbollah tunnels iniltrating its territory from Lebanon and launched an operation to destroy them.
Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said the “attack tunnels” dug by the Shiite militant group backed by Iran, Israel’s main enemy, were not yet operational.
He declined to say how many had been detected or how they would be destroyed, but stressed all activities would take place within Israeli territory.