Israel on alert as Lebanese dig road along withdrawal line in Kfarshouba
The municipality of Kfarshouba opened Thursday a dirt road along the withdrawal line, where Israel recently built a concrete wall.
"The bulldozer has finished excavating the road, and cars are now crossing for the first time since 1978, the date of the occupation," al-Manar reporter Ali Shoeib said.
"All the enemy did was deploying tanks and troops," he added.
Earlier on Thursday, Israel threw a gas bomb that fell inside the occupied land in Kfarshouba after the Lebanese army and a number of journalists approached the new wall that Israel built on Tuesday night.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army threw two smoke bombs at a Lebanese farmer in Kfarshouba, while a U.N. team was examining the new wall.
The tension in Kfarshouba began in June over the Israeli military digging in the area that Lebanon claims.
A Lebanese villager tried to stop an Israeli bulldozer from digging a trench along the border. Once the villager's legs were covered with sand as the bulldozer moved ahead, U.N. peacekeepers jumped in and convinced the driver to move back. Videos of the elderly man with his legs stuck in the sand dune went viral on social media.
In July, the Israeli army fired more than 15 artillery shells on Kfarshouba after a mortar launched from Lebanon exploded in the border area between the two foes.
Earlier that day, Hezbollah condemned Israel for the erection of a barbed wire fence and the construction of a concrete wall around al-Ghajar, a village split into Lebanese and Israeli sides along a border, known as the blue line, that was demarcated after Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
The situations also has been heated along Shebaa Farms. In early June, Israel filed a complaint to the U.N. claiming that Hezbollah had set up tents several dozen meters inside a disputed territory. Hezbollah said it was a response to the construction of the wall around al-Ghajar.
Source: Naharnet
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