Reflections on Northern Border Skirmish

UNIFIL 'peacekeepers' in Lebanon shouted at Lebanese troops to stop shooting at Israel. Their guns remained silent. This Italian 'peacekeeper' looks handsome and strong...but his lack of action belies impotence.

This tree trimming on the Israeli side of the border, provided the pretext for radical Islamist elements in the Lebanese Army to ambush IDF soldiers

Attacked by Lebanon

Lebanese officers – whether locally or higher in the chain of command – unilaterally and arbitrarily decided that the fence constitutes the border and that any movement outside it constitutes infiltration of Lebanon. In any case, the fire wasn’t directed at the crews that ventured beyond the fence but at officers clearly on the Israeli side of it. UNIFIL personnel shouted at Lebanese marksmen to stop but their entreaties were ignored.

Though called “peacekeepers,” the UNIFIL forces did not raise, much less use, their weapon[s] to foil what was obviously outright aggression.

Israel ha[d] taken comfort in the fact that both a much-enlarged UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces are deployed in south Lebanon.

But on Tuesday, UNIFIL proved impotent.

The international community cannot feign ignorance of incontrovertible evidence of Lebanon’s status as a Syrian vassal. Yet Lebanon’s military is directly and massively underpinned by the US and France.

Both need to reassess their aid to what has become an arm of the Iranian- Syrian axis.
[Jerusalem Post]
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U.S.: Lebanese Fire on Israeli Troops Totally Unjustified -Natasha Mozgovaya & Barak Ravid

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that the firing by Lebanese armed forces on Israeli troops near the Israel-Lebanon border, which killed one Israeli officer and seriously wounded another, was "totally unjustified and unwarranted....We don't want to see this happen again."

[However,] Israeli officials had expressed disappointment with the initial U.S. response to the shooting incident calling on both sides to show restraint, prompting Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren to hold talks with senior U.S. officials to demand a harsher response.
(Ha'aretz)
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