The wounded were taken to hospital near scene of the explosion in Lebanon’s southern province of Bustan.
Several reported members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group were wounded in a flare-up on the southern border with Israel, a Lebanese security source and a source briefed on the developments said.
“Three Hezbollah members were wounded by Israeli fire near the border,” the security source told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
The wounded were taken on Wednesday to a hospital near the scene of the explosion in the village Bustan in southern Lebanese province of Bustan, the source added.
The incident took place on the 17th anniversary of the start of a month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006 that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and about 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers fighting Hezbollah inside Lebanon.
There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah’s media office on Wednesday.
In a statement, the Israeli military said that “a number of suspects approached the northern security fence with Lebanon and attempted to sabotage the security fence in the area”.
“Soldiers immediately spotted the suspects and used means to distance them,” the army said, adding that “the identity of the suspects is unknown.”
The Lebanese source briefed on developments in the south described the incident as an attack and said several Hezbollah members had been wounded, but could not immediately provide more details.
One Lebanese security source said a grenade fired by Israeli forces had wounded three people believed to be members of Hezbollah. Another said Israeli troops had fired a grenade at a group of Hezbollah members on the border, wounding three people.
Israel’s public broadcaster Kan said a group of Hezbollah members had set a fire at the border, setting off landmines, and that Israeli troops had fired warning shots during the incident.
The incident comes less than a week after the Israeli army struck southern Lebanon after an anti-tank missile launched from its northern neighbour exploded in the border area between the two foes.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was due to make a televised address to commemorate the 2006 war.
Lebanese officials said that Israel in recent weeks has built a wall around the Lebanese part of Ghajar, a border town that straddles between the tiny Mediterranean country and Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Lebanon’s foreign minister asked the country’s permanent mission to the United Nations to file a complaint on the matter.
Israel meanwhile in June filed a complaint with the UN claiming that Hezbollah had set up tents several dozen metres within Israeli territory. The tents were erected in Chebaa Farms and the Kfar Chouba hills, which Israeli captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981, though Lebanon claims the area belongs to it.
Sumber: www.aljazeera.com
