BEIRUT (AP) — An explosion near Lebanon’s border with Israel lightly wounding at least three members of the militant Hezbollah group, a Lebanese security official said.
The three Hezbollah members were taken to a hospital near the scene of the explosion in the village Bustan in southern Lebanese province of Bustan, said the official on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The Israeli army said a number of suspects “approached the northern security fence with Lebanon and attempted to sabotage the security fence in the area.” It added that the Israeli military immediately spotted the suspects and used means to distance them. The identity of the suspects is unknown, it said.
The commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed on the tense Lebanon-Israel border has relayed an Israeli request to remove a tent set up by the militant Hezbollah group in a disputed area.
Israeli forces have shelled a southern Lebanese border village after several explosions were heard in a disputed area where the borders of Syria, Lebanon and Israel meet.
A French court has upheld the freezing of assets of Lebanon’s embattled central bank governor rejecting his appeal to have them released.
The U.N. peacekeeping force along the Lebanon-Israel border says its commander is in contact with officials in both countries over tensions regarding two tents set up by the militant Hezbollah group.
The incident took place hours before Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was scheduled to speak to commemorate the start of a monthlong war between Israel and the militant group in 2006 that ended with a draw.
Lebanese officials said that Israel in recent weeks has built a wall around the Lebanese part of Ghajar, a border town that straddles between the tiny Mediterranean country and Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Lebanon’s foreign minister asked the country’s permanent mission to the United Nations to file a complaint on the matter.
Israel meanwhile in June filed a complaint with the U.N. claiming that Hezbollah had set up tents several dozen meters (yards) within Israeli territory. It’s unclear what the tents were used for and what was inside them. They were erected in Chebaa Farms and the Kfar Chouba hills, which Israeli captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981, though Lebanon claims the area belongs to them.
Israel considers Hezbollah its most serious immediate threat, and estimates that it has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel.
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Josef Federman and Julia Frankel contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
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