3rd tunnel crossed Lebanon-Israel border – UN peacekeeping force

25 Apr, 2019 14:56 / Updated 5 years ago

A UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, has said that a tunnel discovered earlier this year by Israel had crossed the Lebanese-Israeli border, in the third such breach of a ceasefire resolution. Israel in January accused Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah of having dug what it described as the deepest, “longest and most detailed” tunnel it had discovered, AFP reported. The tunnel from the Lebanese town of Ramyeh – 800 meters from the border – reached a few dozen meters into Israel, and descended to 55 meters underground, the Israeli army said. UNIFIL said on Thursday that the tunnel was the third to have crossed the “blue line,” a demarcation line drawn by the UN to mark Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. UNIFIL’s independent assessment “confirms that this tunnel crosses the blue line in violation of resolution 1701,” which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, it said. The UN force has requested urgent follow-up actions from the Lebanese authorities.