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Israeli army and warplanes provoke Lebanese rhetoric

February 11, 2014 at 11:41 am

On Tuesday dozens of Israeli soldiers with sniffer dogs crossed the electronic fence of the Israel-Lebanon border and stationed themselves in a disputed area opposite the Lebanese neighbourhood of Eteron, Lebanese media outlets said.


A security source in Beirut said: “Intense contacts with the UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] leadership were conducted that led to the withdrawal of the Israeli soldiers.”

An official Lebanese news agency said that other ground troops combed a wide area in the occupied side of the borders between Al-Ghajar neighbourhood and Wadi Al-Assal.

Meanwhile, the news agency said that Israeli warplanes flew over the skies of several villages in south Lebanon simultaneously with the fly over of other Israeli drones in the skies of Shabaa Farms and other neighbouring areas.

The Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said that the Israeli occupation ground and air forces were monitoring Syrian activity in Lebanon.

Earlier today the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Jarida, reported that Israeli warplanes had attacked a convoy of advanced missiles heading out of Syria into Lebanon.

Al-Jarida claimed that the missiles were to be delivered to Hezbollah.

In a separate event, the Lebanese president Michael Suleiman criticised on Tuesday Bashar al-Assad’s condemnation of official Lebanese policy, which is based on distancing itself from the conflict in Syria.

Suleiman said: “Distancing Lebanon from the regional and international conflicts is a policy we adopted and we are proud of. No one decides what the Lebanese has to do, and no one has to criticise their policy to steer clear [of conflicts].”

The Lebanese president appreciated the UN efforts to assist his country to offer aid and shelters to the displaced Syrians.

He stressed that UN assistance is important because it is considered as a UN recognition of the rights of his country to be compensated for the consequences of the Syrian conflict.