Haaretz
Elul 17, 5766
The Israel Defense Forces
released five prisoners in southern Lebanon on Saturday after being
questioned, an army spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, A 70-year-old man
was in critical condition after he was wounded Saturday when a cluster
bomb left over from IDF operations against Hezbollah militants exploded
outside his south Lebanon home, security officials said.
Hussein
Ali Ahmed Ali was tending to his small field outside his house in the
village of Yuhmor when he accidentally stepped on the bomb.
He was
rushed to a hospital in the southern market town of Nabatiyeh with serious
wounds to his head and body and was said to be in critical condition, said
the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to speak to the press.
The five prisoners were detained
by soldiers patrolling Aita al-Shaab, a village which came under Israel's
control during the war against Hizbollah.
The IDF spokeswoman said
the men were unarmed. The army had initially said that four armed men had
been detained by troops on Friday. The army did not say why they were
detained.
On Friday, IDF troops seized six people, including a
policeman, in two Lebanese villages on the border with Israel, residents
and Lebanese security officials said.
Four of the villagers, were
taken in Aita al-Shaab, a village that saw heavy fighting between
Hezbollah militants and the IDF during their 34-day war, the officials
said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized
to talk to the media.
A fifth man, from the Lebanese police
security service, was also seized at Aita al-Shaab when he arrived at the
scene, villagers said.
The state-run National News Agency said IDF
troops also seized another villager at Marwaheen in the same region and
drove him across the border into Israel in a convoy of two
vehicles.
The IDF said its troops stopped a group of men who were
moving toward them and questioned them. The military did not say where the
incident occurred or whether the men were armed.
Villagers in Aita
al-Shaab said four of the young men seized were working at the local
school when an IDF raiding party crossed over the border about one
kilometer away and detained them Friday afternoon.
"There has been
no shooting here and there is no Hezbollah. I have no idea why the
Israelis captured my son," said Abu Hassan Dakdouk, the father of the
captured police officer, Hassan Dakdouk.
The villagers said that
the IDF troops carried out a search in the small border village four days
ago, but they did not know what they were looking for.
The IDF is
in the process of withdrawing from areas they seized in the south during
their Lebanon offensive, and Lebanese soldiers and United Nations
peacekeepers are taking their place under the terms of a UN-brokered
cease-fire that began August 14.
Since the truce began, Israeli
troops have seized Lebanese in areas they control on three other
occasions, the officials said. In each case, the detained Lebanese were
handed over to UN peacekeepers at the Lebanese border village of Naqoura,
apparently after being taken into Israel for questioning.
Two
people hurt in cluster bomb explosion in southern Lebanon
Two
people were wounded Friday when a cluster bomb left over from the war
between Hezbollah and Israel exploded in a southern Lebanese village, the
state-run news agency said.
Nasser Haidar, 39, and his 12-year-old
son, Hassan, were walking in front of their home in Arab Salim when the
bomb exploded inflicting "various wounds," the National News Agency
reported.
The victims were rushed to the government hospital in the
nearby market town of Nabatiyah for treatment, the agency
said.