LEBANON: SECURITY TIGHTENED ALONG BORDER

Описание: (14 Aug 2000) Arabic/Nat

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has called for maintaining a high state of preparedness and alertness along the border with Israel.

Nasrallah, who largely maintained a low profile after the deployment of Lebanese peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, made the statement at a rally in the Bekaa Valley village of Bwadi on Saturday.

The same day, an Israeli army excavator went through the metal barrier put up by the Israelis in the Marjayoun valley, opposite the Israeli town of Metulla, and crossed repeatedly back and forth, guarded by Israeli troops.

The excavator dumped several loads of sand across the border into Lebanon.

The sand, spread over a strip six metres (yards) wide and several hundred metres (yards) long, will show up any footprints or vehicle tracks on the Lebanese side.

The move followed a report by Lebanese police that two Israeli artillery shells fired during military manoeuvres exploded in an uninhabited area of southern Lebanon, but caused no casualties or property damage.

Also on Saturday, a Lebanese youth was wounded when an Israeli soldier fired shots at a group of stone throwers at the flashpoint Fatima Gate in southern Lebanon.

The young man, who was not identified, was not among the stone throwers.

He was hit in the chin by a bullet shrapnel and was moved for treatment at a hospital in the nearby town of Marjayoun.

Such incidents have become a common occurrence at the gate, a former border crossing when Israel occupied a buffer strip in southern Lebanon.

Last Sunday, a man had a toe amputated by a bullet.

The next day, a 13-year-old boy and two Lebanese journalists were wounded by Israeli gunfire.

The violence at Fatima Gate, which followed the deployment of U-N peacekeepers in the south, raised tension along the border and underlined the need for U-N troops to take up a position along the volatile border point.

The gate was excluded when 370 troops from the U-N Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, where deployed on August 5 near eight border villages in accordance with U-N Resolutions 425-6 to prevent friction between Israeli troops and Lebanese guerrillas.

Under the provisions of the same resolutions Lebanon followed suit, sending a task force of one-thousand men - half army troops and half policemen - to the border villages last Wednesday.

But the task force also stayed away from Fatima Gate region, a one kilometre stretch of barbed wire fence along the edge of Kfar Kila town.

Interior Minister Michel Murr, who is direct supervisor of the task force, said its mission was to safeguard peace and security in the villages, and not to protect Israel's borders.

The Hezbollah group, which waged guerrilla warfare against the Israeli occupation forces, also vacated its positions after the deployment of the Lebanese task force, keeping only a handful of unarmed men in them.

But Nasrallah told the rally that "a permanent state of preparedness and alertness should be kept to confront Israel and the Zionist project."

The nearest UNIFIL position is one mile from Fatima Gate, while the Lebanese troops on patrol in the village do not interfere with the stone throwers who come to the gate from all over Lebanon.

Nasrallah also reacted to recent comments by a powerful rabbi.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef last week called on his followers to back former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he runs against Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a future election.


In that sermon, he also described Palestinians as evil-doers and snakes and said Barak "lacked sense" for seeking to make peace with the Arabs.




Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...