Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have been boiling in the past month, with Tel Aviv accusing the Lebanon-based political and militant group Hezbollah of digging cross-border tunnels with the aim of infiltrating the Jewish state.
Beirut put its military on high alert on Monday after a border altercation with Israeli forces. According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, military mobilisation was announced in the southern Lebanese village of Meiss Ej Jabal after three Israeli excavators crossed the technical fence and started digging works without trespassing the border demarcation line. They had also rolled out a 200-metre barbed wire, the NNA says.
Lebanese news site Yameis published a video on Facebook, which purportedly shows an argument between the two sides in the vicinity of Meiss Ej Jabal. The UN peacekeeping forces reportedly intervened in the scuffle.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) claimed on Sunday that they exposed a Hezbollah tunnel in the region, which the militant group allegedly dug to transfer fighters and weapons into Israel in any potential conflict.
The announcement came amid the ongoing IDF-led Operation Northern Shield, which is designed to identify and neutralise the network of Hezbollah’s cross-border tunnels.
Israel and Lebanon last clashed in the summer 2006 war, with Israeli forces invading the country after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. The conflict, which lasted 34 days and claimed the lives of over 1,300 people, was halted by a UN-brokered ceasefire. Lebanese-Israeli relations have been poor for decades, but tensions have been exacerbated recently amid Israeli suspicions that Hezbollah was being used by Iran as a proxy to wage war on Israel.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
