Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
An Israeli strike hit Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing with Syria on October 4, cutting off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days.
Lebanon Transport Minister Ali Hamieh told Reuters that the strike hit inside Lebanese territory near the key border crossing, creating a four-meter wide crater. The minister noted that the crossing was subject to the authority of the Lebanese state.
Colonel Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman, had accused Lebanese armed group Hezbollah on October 3 of using the Masnaa crossing to transport military equipment from into Lebanon. The IDF did not provide any evidence to support the claims.
“The state of Lebanon is responsible for its official border crossings and its ability to prevent Hezbollah from [using] these crossings. The IDF urges the Lebanese state to carry out a strict inspection of the trucks passing through the civilian crossings and to return the trucks and vehicles containing weapons to Syria,” the spokesman said.
“If necessary, [the Israeli military] will not hesitate to act, just as it has done during the entire war,” he added.
More than 300,000 people, mostly Syrian nationals, had crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the last ten days to escape Israel’s intense bombardment, according to Lebanese government statistics.
The clashes on the Lebanese-Israeli border first broke out last October after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, with Hezbollah and its allies launching near-daily attacks in support of the Palestinian enclave. In September, Israel escalated its strikes on Lebanon and went on to launch an invasion into the country.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon have so far claimed the lives of around 2,000 people and left more than 9,000 others wounded. Civilians make up the vast majority of the victims.
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