(Jerusalem) The Israeli army said on Monday that it had foiled "an attempted infiltration of a terrorist cell" and opened fire on armed men, just after they crossed the northern border with the Lebanon.
Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian Lebanese armed group, enemy of the Hebrew state and very influential on the other side of the border, has refuted any attempted incursion.
"We were able to successfully thwart an attempt to infiltrate a terrorist cell in Israel," Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus told reporters, specifying that he had "visual confirmation according to which the terrorists returned to Lebanon ".
The facts occurred "in the region of Mount Dov", specified Mr. Conricus, in reference to a slope of Mount Hermon long claimed by Lebanon which names the area "farms of Shebaa" and that the UN considers part of the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1200.
The Israeli army said that a group of three to five people, armed with rifles, had penetrated a few meters beyond the Blue Line separating Israel from Lebanon and that "the security forces opened fire ".
In a Hebrew-language statement, the army said it did not know if they were injured and said there were no injuries on the Israeli side.
"The army forces are on alert and ready to react according to the situation", it is specified in this text.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu warned that "Hezbollah was playing with fire".
PHOTO PTAL SHAHAROOL, REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu
"Hezbollah and the Lebanese government bear responsibility for this incident and any attack coming from Lebanese territory," Netanyahu said at a press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. "Hezbollah is playing with fire, our reaction will be very strong," he warned.
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Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV channel reported calm in the area after "Israeli artillery fire that lasted for an hour."
"So far the Islamic Resistance has not taken part in any clashes, has not opened fire during the day's events," Hezbollah also reacted in a statement.
"Everything the enemy media reports about a thwarted infiltration operation from Lebanon [...] is totally false," he added.
AFP correspondents on both sides of the border had earlier reported explosions. One of them reported dozens of Israeli artillery strikes in an area of Shebaa Farms, near an Israeli military position.
UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, called for "the utmost restraint", adding in a brief statement that the firing had stopped.
After several conflicts, Israel and Lebanon remain technically in a state of war and UNIFIL is deployed in southern Lebanon to act as a buffer between the two countries.
This surge of fever comes a few days after strikes in Syria blamed on Israel that killed five pro-Iran fighters on 19 July. The next day, Hezbollah announced the death of one of its fighters, Ali Kamal Mohsen, in these raids.
Heavyweight in Lebanese political life, Hezbollah is militarily involved in the Syrian conflict alongside Bashar al-Assad's regime, just like Iran, another enemy of Israel.
"If the Israelis decide to launch a war, we will face them and we will respond", hammered on Sunday in a televised interview the number two of Hezbollah, Naïm Qassem.
The IDF said last week that it had "raised its level of preparedness against various potential enemy actions".
The last major clash between Hezbollah and Israel dates back to 1967 and had made in a month more than 1200 dead on the Lebanese side, mainly civilians, and 160 on the Israeli side, mostly military.
