Incidents between Hezbollah activists and IDF soldiers near the Lebanese border have long since become routine. One Channel 2 News reporter on Wednesday visited near the border fence between Israel and Lebanon and documented one of those encounters with Hezbollah agents. Stopping next to the fence at a point overlooking the village of Ayta ash Shab, the reporter was immediately rewarded with a view of Hezbollah men arriving to photograph and observe the visitors, standing just a few feet from the fence. An international incident has begun to brew.
The Hezbollah vehicle is parked directly across from the TV cameras, recording anyone approaching. The agents’ weapons remain inside the vehicle and they come out dressed in civilian clothes, seemingly without any identifying signs. but immediately they start videotaping the group on the Israeli side, even whistle to get the visitors to look at their cameras. They investigate everything that’s taking place on the other side of the border.
Long minutes pass, and they do not move away. Suddenly, one of them comes over and touches the fence – knowingly generating that mini-international incident everyone had been anticipating. An IDF force is rushed to the scene. It’s a routine procedure, and military’s goal is to keep the enemy away from the fence.
The IDF patrol positions itself directly in front of the Hezbollah agents, making sure that they do not approach the fence and try to sabotage it, but mostly demonstrating its ownership over that tiny slice of territory. Every inch of it. It’s all part of an ongoing struggle over sovereignty along the fence. It does not cease for even a minute.
The Israeli soldiers carry out a routine removal protocol, challenging the Hezbollah for a few tense minutes until the terrorists blink first and drive away.
According to the report, Hezbollah always come dressed as civilians, or as employees of the nearby nature preserve. They always come up real close to the fence – collecting intelligence about the IDF activities and logistics, to be used in the next—inevitable—confrontation.
The Hezbollah men pay no attention to the UNIFIL peacemakers, whose job it is to prevent just this kind of incident.
And so, that’s the way it is at the tip of Israel’s long and narrow map, continuous, small incidents of territorial rivalry, when, for the time being, no one wants to shatter the quiet.