ISRAEL: Israel urges Lebanon to deploy troops on northern border and says is ready for more fighting

Record ID: 398067

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israel urges Lebanon to deploy troops on northern border and says is ready for more fighting
  • Date: 29th May 2006
  • Summary: SOLDIERS ATTENDING BRIEFING HIRCSH SPEAKING TO REPORTERS SOLDIERS ON OBSERVATION POST (2 SHOTS) HELICOPTER HOVERING ABOVE BORDER SMOKE RISING FROM LANDSCAPE WIDE VIEW OF AREA, PAN TO SMOKE RISING
  • Embargoed: 13th June 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVAA3MYUIA7YBT13FIRLJ5B9YKJX
  • Story Text: Israel said on Monday (May 29) it is prepared for another attack by Lebanese guerrillas and urged the Lebanese government to deploy troops on the tense border.
    "We are ready for another Hizbollah attack. I hope that won't happen, I hope that the clue is well understood on the Lebanese side, I hope that the Lebanese government will redeploy its forces along the northern border and we will respect that redeployment," Brigadier General Gal Hirsch, Commander of Galilee region told reporters during a briefing on the border front.
    If Hizbollah will try to build again its infrastructure along the northern border and will attack again, we will have to destroy it again," Hirsch added.
    Normalcy returned to the northern frontier after intense cross border fighting between Leabanese guerrillas and the Israeli army.
    Israeli school children returned to schools while the army remained on alert at the border, enforced with military vehicles.
    A barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon landed in an Israeli army base in northern Israel on Sunday (May 28), lightly wounding a soldier and causing some damage, a military spokeswoman said.
    The barrage is the first to have been fired into Israel since Feb. 3, the spokeswoman said. She added that no Israeli action had been taken in response.
    A statement issued by the army later said Israel "holds the Lebanese government responsible for any attacks which originate in its territory".
    Israel Radio reported that the rockets landed near the northern Israeli town of Safed which is a few kilometres further south than any previous rocket is thought to have landed in several years of rocket attacks from Lebanese territory.
    Israel has often retaliated with air strikes against the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah, responsible for most of the sporadic cross-border rocket and artillery fire since Israeli forces ended a 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
    Israel has also blamed Palestinian militant groups based in refugee camps in Lebanon as being responsible for the firing of some rockets on its territory.
    Israeli media were not reporting a motive for the firings but Hizbollah have often stated that their reason for attacking Israel is a dispute over the Shebaa Farms area which lies at the convergence of Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria.
    Israel has retained control of some of the Shebaa Farms area since the 2000 withdrawal.
    Israel - backed by the UN - says the zone was captured from Syria in 1967 and its fate should be determined in negotiations with Syria.
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