Kfarkila Fence Boosted, Israeli Army Ordered to 'Act Firmly'
Israeli soldiers on Thursday put up new barbed wire on the border with Lebanon, three days ahead of a planned Palestinian march, a Lebanese security official said.
An Agence France Presse journalist at the scene saw the soldiers adding the wire on top of a fence already in place in the Adaisseh-Kfarkila sector facing the Israeli town of Metulla.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the army to act firmly but try to avoid bloodshed during any protests on Israel's borders.
"Like any country in the world, Israel has the right and also the obligation to protect its borders and defend them," he told a hi-tech conference in Jerusalem on Thursday.
"Therefore my instructions are clear: to act with restraint but with the determination necessary to protect our borders ... and our citizens," he said.
Palestinians plan to march on Israel's borders from neighboring Arab states on Sunday to mark the 1967 Six Day War, during which the Jewish state seized east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Syria's Golan Heights.
On March 15, Palestinians marched on Israel's borders with Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip in a mass show of mourning over the 1948 creation of the Jewish state, which saw many Palestinians expelled or forced to flee from their homes.
Six Palestinian protesters were killed and more than 100 others wounded when Israeli troops opened fire on a demonstration near the border fence in the Lebanese southern town of Maroun al-Ras.
Source: Agence France Presse
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