Israeli troops make 800-meter incursion into Houla

Israeli troops made an 800-meter incursion into Houla at dawn Thursday and blew up a livestock room facing the al-Abbad Israeli military post, the National News Agency said.

Such violations have become frequent in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, a 20-strong Israeli infantry force made a dawn incursion into the Rayhanat Berri area in the al-Mari plain in south Lebanon, searching some inhabited and deserted homes and interrogating a number of Lebanese residents and Syrian workers.

Israeli forces had on Friday made an incursion into the center of the southern border town of Mays al-Jabal, where they blew up two bulldozers that were removing the rubble of houses destroyed in the latest war.

The Israeli army had said on July 9 that Israeli troops had entered southern Lebanon days earlier to dismantle alleged infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, describing the incursion as “special, targeted operations” to prevent Hezbollah from “reestablishing itself in the area.”

It claimed the ground incursion had been launched based on “intelligence information and the identification of Hezbollah weapons and terrorist infrastructure in several areas of southern Lebanon.”

Israel has kept up its attacks in Lebanon, mainly in the South, despite a November ceasefire with Hezbollah that followed a devastating war.

It says it is targeting Hezbollah militants and arms depots and preventing Hezbollah from reestablishing itself.

Lebanon and Hezbollah meanwhile accuse Israel of failing to honor the November ceasefire agreement through maintaining attacks and through keeping forces on five strategic hills that Israel deems strategic.

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack visited Lebanon for a third time from Monday to Wednesday to discuss a U.S. paper calling for Hezbollah’s disarmament, border demarcation with Syria and financial reforms.