United Nations Security Force Confirms Israel’s Position

UNIFIL, the United Nations security force deployed to maintain peace on the Israel-Lebanon border, has confirmed Israel’s position that all soldiers were working within Israel when a Lebanese Army sniper fired across the international border killing two Israeli soldiers.

All operations on that day, August 3^rd, took place south of the Blue Line, clearly in Israeli sovereign territory.  Technically, the Lebanese attack was an act of war which could have been responded to severely.  However, Israeli only responded by returning fire on the location of the attack.

The IDF English website reports:

UNIFIL announced today (Wednesday, August 25) that it had completed its investigation of the August 3rd incident that occurred between the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Israel Defense Forces, and verified its preliminary conclusions that Israel had operated within its own borders when Lebanese sniper fire targeted Israeli soldiers. The IDF had been pruning a tree that each side claimed to be within its own territory, when the Lebanese army used live fire towards the IDF force operating in the area, killing a senior officer, and provoking an exchange of fire. UNIFIL announced that while “both the LAF and IDF cooperated fully with the UNIFIL team during the investigation”, their completed report “confirms the preliminary conclusions” in which UNIFIL had determined that the tree in question was located inside Israel’s border.