Israel Building Another Wall near Lebanese Border
Israel is walling off an area in the Upper Galilee near the Lebanese border and the Israeli-occupied side of Golan, citing what it claims are security threats from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.
Israel’s Channel 2 News has aired footage of Israeli troops constructing a wall in Kibbutz Misgav Am near the Lebanese border by placing sections of concrete next to each other.
Israeli regime officials claim the wall is meant to prevent the potential entry of Hezbollah fighters to conduct attacks.
Israel waged two wars on Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. About 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, lost their lives during the 33-day war in the summer of 2006.
A senior Israeli military official warned that another war would be “devastating” to Lebanon as Tel Aviv would unleash all of its military capabilities on the Arab country.
Major General Yair Golan, Israel’s deputy chief of staff, said on Wednesday Hezbollah had developed capabilities that present “unprecedented” threats to Israel.
In 2012, a similar wall was set up by Tel Aviv near the Lebanese town of Metulla.
The recent wall construction came two days after the Israeli army started a military drill in the northern occupied territories. The military exercise reportedly involved large numbers of Israeli aircraft, vehicles and army troops.
The drill was geared toward “maintaining competency and vigilance of the troops,” an Israeli military statement said.
The Israeli army also held a two-day general drill in and around the northern city of Safed on the weekend.
The latest development came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ruled out any possibility of returning the Israeli-occupied section of the Golan Heights to Syria.
Iran, Germany, the Arab League and the US joined Syria in rejecting Tel Aviv’s claim over the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 Six Day War and illegally annexed the region in 1981 – a move unanimously rejected the same year by the UN Security Council.