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October 9, 2024 – 09:59
(Keystone-ATS) The Lebanese Hezbollah movement said on Wednesday it had twice repelled Israeli troops trying to infiltrate southern Lebanon.
After weakening Hamas, whose attack on an unprecedented scale on October 7, 2023 on Israeli soil triggered deadly hostilities in the Gaza Strip, Israel is now waging an open war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, an ally of the movement. Palestinian Islamist.
In a statement released after midnight, the party announced that its fighters had detonated “an explosive device on an Israeli enemy force” and engaged “in combat with it as it attempted to infiltrate the border town of Blida” (south-east).
In another statement, Hezbollah declared that its fighters had targeted Israeli soldiers in particular “with artillery shells” while they tried to advance “at 4:55 a.m. Wednesday towards the border area of Labouneh” (south west).
The Lebanese movement recently indicated that it had repulsed infiltration attempts by the Israeli army, which has been engaged since September 30 in a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
10,000 UNIFIL soldiers
At the same time, Israel is carrying out intense bombings against Hezbollah strongholds in this sector as well as in two other of its strongholds, in the southern suburbs of Beirut as well as in the east of the country.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah said it had pushed back Israeli soldiers who had “infiltrated” near a Blue Helmet position in Labboune, another border village.
Some 10,000 UN soldiers are deployed in southern Lebanon, along the blue line which marks the border between the two countries. Since the start of the escalation at the end of September, UNIFIL has been calling on the two belligerents to apply UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
This resolution, which marked the end of the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, stipulates that only UN peacekeeping forces and the Lebanese army can be deployed in southern Lebanon.
Despite this resolution, the armed Islamist movement has maintained a presence in this region.
