Lebanese lawmaker leads group across Israeli border; IDF fires warning shots
Group is chased back, does not cross barrier; Hezbollah-affiliated reporter says the 18 people, many of them journalists, joined parliamentarian for tour of border
A group of Lebanese, including a parliamentarian, crossed the border into Israeli sovereign territory on Saturday morning, before being chased back to Lebanon by the Israel Defense Forces who fired warning shots.
In a statement, the IDF said troops fired warning shots and used riot dispersal means after the group of some 18 people crossed the so-called Blue Line in the contested Mount Dov region. The group walked some 80 meters into Israeli territory but not did not breach Israel’s border barrier.
According to Ali Shoeib, a Hezbollah-affiliated correspondent, a group of journalists had joined MP Qassem Hashem, a member of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in Lebanon, for a tour of the border area.
Read More https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-fires-warning-shots-as-lebanese-lawmaker-leads-group-across-israeli-border/
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Hezbollah members seen stealing Israeli surveillance tech from border tower
Military says suspects posed no threat to residents of nearby town of Metula; incident Wednesday is latest in series of terror group ‘provocations’
Hezbollah activists climbed an Israeli military tower on the border and stole surveillance equipment, new footage from a Wednesday flareup along the frontier showed.
Images and videos posted to social media on Wednesday and Thursday showed a number of men climbing on a surveillance structure, which Israel maintains is on its side of the border, placing flags, and tearing down military cameras, which they carry off intact.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Thursday that a number of suspects climbed on the security barrier near the northern town of Metula, “while trying to carry out provocations toward IDF forces and sabotage infrastructure in the area.”
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Israel-Hezbollah tensions spike around small village straddling restive frontier
A fence built by Israel around the northern part of Ghajar – that sits in Lebanese territory – is leading to renewed warnings by terror group against Israeli annexation of town
KFAR CHOUBA, Lebanon — The little village of Ghajar has been a sore point between Israel and Lebanon for years, split in two by the border between Lebanon and the Israeli Golan Heights. But after a long period of calm, the dispute has begun to heat up again.
Israel built a fence around the northern half of the village in Lebanese territory last year, but the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah has recently claimed that Israel is only now finishing what it has called a “wall” and has lambasted Israel for annexing the site. A recent exchange of fire in the area raised alarm that the dispute could trigger violence.
The growing tensions over Ghajar add to the jitters along the Lebanese-Israeli border, where Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fought a destructive 34-day war in the summer of 2006. The two sides have studiously avoided outright battle ever since, despite frequent flare-ups of tension — but each constantly says a new conflict could erupt at any time.
The dispute over a small village in the green hills where Lebanon, Israel and Syria meet brings a new point of worry amid broader unrest. The West Bank has seen increased bloodshed earlier this month, with a major two-day offensive that Israel says targeted Palestinian terror groups. Within Israel, moves by the hard-right government to overhaul the judicial system have sparked large anti-government protests.
“This is Lebanese land, not Israeli,” said Lebanese shepherd Ali Yassin Diab, pointing to the half of Ghajar as he grazed his sheep and goats nearby. Members of the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL watched from a distance. In the early 2000s, Yassin used to take his herds to drink at a pond there but has since been cut off.
The village’s division is an unusual byproduct of the decades of conflict between Israel and its neighbors.
Ghajar was once part of Syria but was captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war as part of Syria’s Golan Heights, which Israel later annexed, with little world recognition.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Ghajar’s population expanded north into nearby Lebanese territory, held by Israel in its 18-year military occupation of southern Lebanon. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000, UN surveyors delineating temporary borders ruled that Ghajar’s northern part was in Lebanon, its southern part in the Golan, dividing it in two.
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