Lebanese Gunfire at IDF on Northern Border

Israel National News (Link) - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (September 21, 2010)

Lebanese soldiers fired at Israeli troops Monday evening after hearing gunshots from the Israeli side, which the IDF said were part of a routine training exercise. No one on either side of the border was injured.

The incident follows by six weeks a border clash in which Lebanese soldiers opened fire and killed an IDF reserve officer during a routine IDF maintenance operation within Israeli territory. The United Nations criticized Lebanon for the incident, in which another Israeli reserve officer was wounded and three Lebanese�two soldiers and a journalist�were killed in retaliatory fire.

Monday�s exchange of gunfire occurred several miles east of the northeastern Israel border in the same area where Hizbullah kidnapped and killed two reserve soldiers in 2006, touching off the 34-day Second Lebanon War.

Hizbullah�s Al-Manar television network alleged that Israeli soldiers fired on the Lebanese army with what Lebanon called "provocative� gunfire. The Lebanese army, which was reinforcing its position at the nearby village of Duheria, placed its soldiers on alert and shot towards Israeli soldiers.

�What the Lebanese army heard came from these exercises,� An IDF spokeswoman said. Lebanese authorities claimed that 14 bullets were fired over the heads of Lebanese soldiers in Duheria.

United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said it is investigating the incident. �