Israel Matzav

UNIFIL: 'We deal with complaints of provocations by Lebanese soldiers... on a daily basis'

A UNIFIL spokesman told Army Radio on Wednesday that the peacekeeping force deals with complaints of provocations by Lebanese Armed Forces troops against IDF soldiers on a daily basis (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

Milos Strugar, UNIFIL's senior political adviser said that the IDF had "informed UNIFIL that it was going to conduct maintenance works" on the border, adding that while the Israeli unit had been "on the northern side of the border fence," it was nonetheless "south of the international borderline."

However, the UNIFIL official added that the information he had was "preliminary," adding that he will look into the evidence "more thoroughly" later in the day.

"The situation became tense right away, with the Lebanon army also being there," Strugar said, adding that UNIFIL forces had tried "to calm the situation and allow the IDF to work."

Asserting the IDF's claim that it had informed the Lebanese side of the planned border works, Strugar said that UNIFIL had received a message from the IDF "regarding these works, and we had passed that on to the Lebanese army."

"We deal with complaints on provocations of Lebanese soldiers against IDF units on a daily basis," Strugar told Army Radio, adding incidents occur "almost every day, there's a lot of tension round the border, but what happened is the worst incident since 2006."

Why am I not surprised that the LAF regularly violates Security Council resolution 1701?

By the way, have a look at this picture from Haaretz. What's wrong with the caption (answer below the picture)?

What's wrong with the caption is that it perpetuates the myth that the IDF had crossed into Lebanon on Tuesday. It had not. The Lebanese soldier was in Adesia. The 'border fence' being patrolled by the IDF troops is not on the border, but is on the Israeli side.

But then you'd expect Haaretz to deliberately mess up like that, wouldn't you?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:37 PM