{"id":24925,"date":"2018-12-10T04:23:23","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T04:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24925"},"modified":"2018-12-10T04:23:23","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T04:23:23","slug":"israel-says-located-second-hezbollah-tunnel-from-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24925","title":{"rendered":"Israel says located second \u2018Hezbollah\u2019 tunnel from Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nJERUSALEM: Israel\u2019s army said on Saturday it had located another tunnel crossing into its territory from Lebanon, the second such find since launching an operation to expose and destroy alleged Hezbollah \u201cattack tunnels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe IDF has located an additional Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel,\u201d spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said, refusing to give details on its precise location or dimensions.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe tunnel crosses into Israel, like the first tunnel it is not yet operational and does not pose an imminent threat to Israeli communities,\u201d he said in a briefing with journalists.<\/p>\n

\nOn Tuesday, the army launched an operation dubbed \u201cNorthern Shield\u201d to destroy tunnels it said were dug under the border by the militant group Hezbollah, sharing images of one found near the Israeli town of Metula.<\/p>\n

\nConricus said on Saturday that the army had placed explosives in the newly exposed tunnel to prevent its use as a means to infiltrate Israel, but had not yet destroyed it. He said the Israeli military had issued warnings in Arabic to residents of southern Lebanon to stay away.<\/p>\n

\nFollowing the army\u2019s announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the operation to track the tunnels \u201cis in its beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to act till its completion,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\nConricus said the military was aware of a third tunnel leading from south Lebanon into Israel.<\/p>\n

\nDespite not having its exact location, he said Israel asked UNIFIL, the UN mission monitoring the border region, to \u201ctake action and block the tunnel on the Lebanese side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe announcement of the new find came after Israeli soldiers on Saturday opened fire at what they perceived to be three \u201cHezbollah activists\u201d approaching the border near Yiftah, south of Metula, where the army was carrying out engineering work.<\/p>\n

\nConricus said the army believed the three individuals intended to take sensors the Israeli soldiers had placed in the ground as part of their efforts to uncover tunnels.<\/p>\n

\nLebanon\u2019s official NNA news agency said Israeli forces fired shots in the air east of the village of Mays Al-Jabal after they had been surprised because of heavy fog by a routine Lebanese army patrol.<\/p>\n

\nAlso Saturday, the Kremlin said Netanyahu called Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces are fighting on the same side as Hezbollah in Syria, to tell him about the tunnel operation.<\/p>\n

\nPutin \u201cstressed the need to ensure stability along the line separating Israel and Lebanon,\u201d the Russian Embassy in Israel said.<\/p>\n

\nNetanyahu\u2019s office said he reiterated in the call \u201cIsrael\u2019s policy to prevent the establishment of an Iranian presence in Syria and to act against Iranian and Hezbollah aggression.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIsrael has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria against what it says are Iranian military targets and deliveries of advanced arms to Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

\nHowever, a friendly fire incident in Syria in September that led to the downing of a Russian plane by Syrian air defenses during an Israeli strike has complicated Israeli operations.<\/p>\n

\nIran-backed Hezbollah is the only group in Lebanon not to have disarmed after the country\u2019s 1975-1990 civil war. Israel fought a war against Hezbollah in 2006 that was halted by a truce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERUSALEM: Israel\u2019s army said on Saturday it had located another tunnel crossing into its territory from Lebanon, the second such find since launching an operation to expose and destroy alleged Hezbollah \u201cattack tunnels.\u201d \u201cThe IDF has located an additional Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel,\u201d spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said, refusing to give details on its…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}