Lebanon’s southern border witnessed severe tension following Israeli activity which Lebanon considered violations of the Blue Line demarcated by the United Nations after Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli forces escalated the frequency of their violations of the Blue Line in a number of border points adjacent to southern Lebanese towns, namely Mays al-Jabal, Houla, Markaba and Honein. In return, it reported that the Lebanese Army and residents responded to these violations.
On Wednesday, NNA said a Lebanese army unit stopped an Israeli bulldozer from crossing the Blue Line at the border of Mays al-Jabal in the south.
The Lebanese Army managed to prevent the vehicle from resuming its operation in the Karkazan area at the northern outskirts of Mays al-Jabal, forcing it to retreat amid the spread of a number of Israeli military vehicles and soldiers who were stationed behind trees and rocks.
A UNIFIL patrol arrived at the scene and documented the Israeli breach, the news agency said.
NNA also said that Israeli bulldozers crossed the technical fence at an area located between the villages of Markaba and Honein, and Israeli soldiers fired five bullets into the air to scare off Lebanese civilians who tried to confront them.
In a third security incident at the Lebanese southern border, an Israeli force advanced towards an internationally reserved point at the border line, and uprooted trees outside the technical fence. It violated the Blue Line for a distance of one meter during a cleaning operation around the perimeter of the fence at the border between the town of Houla and the Al-Manara settlement.
In response, residents in the area planted 40 trees on the part damaged by Israeli equipment on the technical fence, in “a message of defiance and determination against the Israeli practices and its attempt to attack lands in Houla and the south,” NNA said.
