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"This
constitutes a clear violation of the Blue Line," Lahud (AFP)
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TYRE,
Lebanon, January 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israeli
warplanes raided what they called “targets” in south Lebanon
Tuesday, January 20, a day after the Lebanese resistance movement
Hezbollah destroyed an Israeli bulldozer that crossed into the
Lebanese side of a U.N.-demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon.
Israeli
public radio said the raids attacked two Hezbollah bases in southern
Lebanon in response to the killing of one Israeli soldier and injuring
of two others in Monday operation, reported Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
It
was not immediately known if there were any casualties in the raids
which AFP correspondents said hit deep inside the south. The Israeli
army confirmed the attack.
Israeli
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz accused Hezbollah and Syria of
"deliberate provocation" the Israeli radio said.
However,
Lebanon's President Emile Lahud said Tuesday that it was the Israeli
bulldozer which triggered the tensions after the investigation of the
international forces in south Lebanon had proved that the tractor was
indeed inside Lebanese territories.
"This
constitutes a clear violation of the Blue Line," he said,
referring to the demarcation line marked out by the U.N. Interim Force
in Lebanon (UNIFIL) when Israel was forced by the Lebanese resistance
to end its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in May 2000.
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On
of the two Israeli soldiers wounded in Hezbollah operation taken
into hospital (AFP)
|
The
United Nations confirmed its investigations had found that the Israeli
military bulldozer was "violating" Lebanese territory at the
time.
"After
investigation, UNIFIL can confirm that the Israeli bulldozer was on
the Lebanese side when it was hit," said UNIFL Spokesman Milos
Strugar.
"It
was violating the Blue Line," he asserted to AFP.
It
is the worst flare-up on the frontier since an
Israeli air raid on an alleged Palestinian base in Syria last
October, the first attack on Syrian soil in three decades.
Observers,
however, see it unlikely neither side may resort to escalation.
