Shells from Syria Hit Border Town, Injure Boy

Three mortar shells hit the town al-Dbabiyeh in the northern district of Akkar Monday overnight, injuring a boy and causing damages to two houses.

The state-run National News Agency reported on Tuesday that the shells hit Lebanese territories due to the intense fighting along the border with Syria.

The damaged houses belong to al-Ahmed family.

Another shell hit the town's square slightly injuring a boy identified as Moustapha Ahmed.

The news agency reported that several families fled the town to safer places amid fears that the situation might deteriorate, calling on the Lebanese state to protect them.

Mortars and shells from the Syrian side regularly crash in Lebanon, causing several casualties. But Lebanese forces have never fired back despite promises of retaliation.

More dangerously, Syria's conflict has heightened deep rivalries and sectarian tensions in Lebanon, which is divided between pro-Syrian President Bashar Assad and anti-Assad factions, a legacy of the nearly three decades when Damascus all but ruled Lebanon, until 2005.

The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria's two-year conflict, which broke out after the army unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent, turning the uprising into a bloody insurgency.