Hizballah Militiamen Rush Border, Briefly Seize Unmanned Israeli Lookout Post

DEBKAfile Special Report
July 17, 2009, 8:23 PM (GMT+02:00)
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6184

DEBKAfile's military sources report that the IDF and northern command are
urgently investigating how a large group of Hizballah terrorists and Lebanese
villagers managed to rush the new border fence and hoist Lebanese and Hizballah
flags at an unmanned Israeli lookout post at the foot of the Kfar Shaba Farms
Hills. The incident occurred Friday, July 17 around the date of the third
anniversary of the Lebanon war, a conflict that was in fact triggered by a
Hizballah cross-border raid and kidnap of Israeli soldiers.

The intruders left when ordered to by UN peacekeepers. An Israeli force with
three tanks arrived then and removed the flags.

The incursion led by Hizballah lawmaker Qassem Hashem caught the Israeli army
napping. It was the second reminder in a week that the Lebanese Shiite terrorist
group is on the march. Wednesday, July 15, a big blast at a Hizballah weapons
depot situated illegally in the South Lebanese village of Khirbat Salim 20
kilometers from the Israeli border.

The incident Friday occurred shortly before Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah
delivered a policy speech, in which he announced his movement would join a
Lebanese unity government only if it endorsed Hizballah's trumped-up demands for
Israel to hand over the four Iranian diplomats who disappeared in Lebanon 1982
and the remains of Lebanese "martyrs."

In fact, the diplomats were executed by the Lebanese Phalangists and there are
no more Lebanese remains in Israel - as Nasrallah knows perfectly well. However,
he is maneuvering to force the new Lebanese government to adopt Hizballah's
platform. One of his (and Tehran's) goals is to frustrate US President Barack
Obama's plans to promote peace negotiations between Israel and Lebanon. The
other is to wriggle out of the UN demand for Hizballah to disarm by
demonstrating that its militia is the only force capable of pressing Beirut's
claims against Israel.