Just Journalism
03 August '10
Tuesday afternoon has seen a violent conflagration on the Israel-Lebanon border, the most serious since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Initial reports suggested several casualties and at the time of this writing, one Israeli soldier, and at least three Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist, are confirmed to have been killed.
International reporting has revealed conflicting claims as to what triggered the incident, with Israel claiming that its soldiers were conducting routine maintenance work - removing shrubbery - on its side of the Blue Line, the border between Israel and Lebanon as demarcated by UN Resolution 1701, which certified the end of the 2006 hostilities. Israel also maintains that it worked in conjunction with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the peacekeeping force permanently deployed along the Lebanese border. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) counter-claimed that Israeli troops entered sovereign Lebanese territory.
One of the questions as to what happened today centres on a photograph that shows an Israeli-operated crane reaching beyond the fence that physically divides Israel from Lebanon but that does not necessarily demarcate the border between the two nations - a claim substantiated by both IDF and UNIFIL spokespersons in conversation with Just Journalism Executive Director Michael Weiss this afternoon.
Lt Col Avital Leibovich of the IDF told Just Journalism in a conference call consisting of bloggers and journalists:
'The incident itself took place on Israeli territory, in some places along the northern border. There is some gap between the border fence itself and the actual border. Our troops were conducting routine maintenance work that included, among other things, clearing bushes from that area.
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