UNIFIL vehicle seized in Hay el-Sellom in fresh incident
A vehicle belonging to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was seized by residents Monday in the Beirut southern suburb of Hay el-Sellom, which is a Hezbollah stronghold, media reports said.
The vehicle ended up in the aforementioned area due to a “GPS error,” the reports said.
This is not the first such incident in recent months.
On March 1, a similar occurrence sparked an altercation with locals and a brief detention of the peacekeepers, also in Hay el-Sellom.
After that incident, UNIFIL emphasized that “in addition to freedom of movement inside UNIFIL's area of operations, peacekeepers have the freedom and authorization from the Lebanese Government to move throughout Lebanon for administrative and logistical reasons."
Similar incidents have frequently happened in south Lebanon in recent years, but this is the second time such an incident takes place near the capital amid an ongoing conflict in the south between Hezbollah and Israel.
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