Israel-Lebanon border clash kills five people
BayBak, Azerbaijan | 1020 days ago | Tuesday, 3rd August , 2010 , 19:38 [pm] | International
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. | Three Lebanese soldiers, a senior Israeli officer and a Lebanese journalist have been killed in an exchange of fire in the border area.
The Lebanese say they opened fire after Israeli troops entered Lebanon. The Israelis deny crossing the border. |
Three Lebanese soldiers, a senior Israeli officer and a Lebanese journalist have been killed in an exchange of fire in the border area.
The Lebanese say they opened fire after Israeli troops entered Lebanon. The Israelis deny crossing the border.
It is the first serious clash there since the 2006 conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah militants.
Lebanon’s prime minister condemned the “aggression”. But Israel warned of “consequences” if violence continued.
The US said it was “extremely concerned” at the violence and urged “maximum restraint” from both sides.
The Lebanese army says Israeli soldiers crossed the border to uproot a tree which was blocking their view near the Lebanese village of Adaysseh.
A Lebanese army spokesman said troops had fired warning shots and Israel had responded with fire from artillery positions and helicopters.
The Lebanese army confirmed to the BBC that three of its soldiers had been killed and four wounded. The al-Akhbar newspaper confirmed that one of its journalists, Assaf Abu Rahhal, had also been killed.
In a statement, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Lebanese sovereignty had been violated.
Restraint urged
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) said its troops had been working on its side of the border near the town of Kiryat Shemona, when they received warnings to leave the area.
“The soldiers were on routine activity in Israeli territory, in an area that lies between the ‘Blue Line’ (the UN-drawn but commonly accepted border between Israel and Lebanon) and the security fence, thus within Israeli territory,” the IDF said in a statement.
People in Lebanese army uniform then opened fire on the troops. The Israelis first said two officers had been seriously wounded, but then later confirmed that a senior officer had died.
He was named as 45-year-old Lt-Col Dov Harari from Netanya, a reserve commander in the engineering corps.
The army said an Israeli captain had been “critically wounded”. Israeli media reported that he was in a stable condition in a Haifa hospital.
Maj-Gen Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Israeli military’s northern command, told reporters he believed the incident was “a one-time event”.
Speaking at a base near the Lebanese border, he said: “We received requests and demands from the highest ranks in the Lebanese army to cease fire.”
However, he described the incident as a “deliberate ambush”.
The UN peacekeeping force stationed in southern Lebanon, Unifil, has urged both sides to show “maximum restraint” following the clash.
The BBC’s Wyre Davies in Jerusalem says the clash is an indication of the tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border.
US state department spokesman PJ Crowley said Washington was in touch with both governments.
“We are trying to understand what happened,” he said.
“The region has enough tension as it is. The last thing that we want to see is that this incident expand into something more significant.”
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said the incident could have been caused by one of the sides misidentifying the correct location of the border.
The exchange comes a day after rockets were fired at the Israeli resort of Eilat, with a stray rocket killing one person in the nearby port of Aqaba in Jordan.bbc
, Voice of a Nation[1] Print
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