Beirut/Jerusalem (Reuters) – Several members of Lebanon’s powerful armed Hezbollah group were wounded on Wednesday in a flare-up on the southern border with Israel, two Lebanese security sources and a source briefed on the developments told Reuters.
The Israeli military said it used “a non-lethal weapon” to distance “a number of suspects” attempting to damage the security fence with Lebanon to the north.
The incident took place on the 17th anniversary of the start of a month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and around 160 Israelis, most of them troops fighting Hezbollah inside Lebanon.
In a televised address to mark the occasion, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the incident was under investigation but did not say more.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) told Reuters it was aware of “disturbing reports about an incident along the Blue Line,” urging all sides to refrain from escalating given the situation was “extremely sensitive.”
The Lebanese source briefed on developments described the incident as an attack and said several Hezbollah members had been wounded, but could not immediately provide more details.
A Lebanese security source said Israeli troops had fired “something like a grenade” that emitted shrapnel and hurt three Hezbollah members. A second said an Israeli grenade had wounded three people believed to be members of Hezbollah.
A separate source briefed on the incident said Israel had incorporated “preventive technologies” following repeated attempts to sabotage the border fence.
That source said one of these technologies, “a non-lethal, landmine-like version of a stun grenade,” had gone off on Wednesday and it was “designed to stun, through loud noise.”
Reuters could not independently verify the sources’ accounts of the developments.
Lebanon last year delineated its maritime frontier with Israel through U.S.-mediated talks, but the land border remains disputed and tensions have risen in recent weeks.
Last week, rockets fired from south Lebanon prompted cross-border strikes by Israel’s military.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry this week said it would file a complaint to the United Nations in New York over what it described as Israel’s “annexation” of the northern part of Ghajar, a village straddling the Israel-Lebanon border.
Lebanon considers it part of its territory, but Ghajar’s residents assert an allegiance to Syria.
A Lebanese parliamentary delegation planning on visiting the southern border on Thursday indefinitely postponed the visit “due to the security developments on the border”.
