BEIRUT: Lebanon has lodged a complaint with the UN Security Council over Israel’s abduction of a shepherd from what it says was Lebanese territory at the weekend, a Foreign Ministry source said Wednesday.
“Lebanon complained to the Security Council over the abduction of Lebanese citizen Imad Hassan Atwi by Israeli enemy troops,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
The complaint letter said Atwi had been taken “from the outskirts of the town of Sedana between Shebaa and Kfar Shuba … in blatant violation of Resolution 1701.”
Security Council Resolution 1701 brought an end to a deadly 34-day summer war in 2006 with Israel.
Resolution 1701calls for the “full respect” of the Blue Line, a UN-drawn border established after the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in 2000 following a 22-year occupation.
Atwi, 37, disappeared on Sunday in an area where there is no barbed wire separating the Lebanese town of Shebaa from the Shebaa Farms, a disputed sliver of land on Lebanon’s southeastern border.
Israel on Monday handed the shepherd back to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and the Lebanese Army said Atwi was immediately hospitalized for serious injuries.
UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh declined to specify whether the Israeli troops had carried out an incursion into Lebanese territory, saying an investigation was underway.
Hizbullah condemned the abduction as a “Zionist hijacking of a Lebanese citizen … under the noses of United Nations troops” and held UNIFIL fully responsible.
The Shebaa Farms, a mountainous area rich in water resources and measuring 25 square kilometers, is located at the junction of southeast Lebanon, southwest Syria and northern Israel.
The area has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war and caught in a tug-of-war over ownership ever since.
Lebanon lays claim to the Farms with Syria’s backing, although Israel argues the territory is Syrian.
The United Nations has requested Lebanon provide sufficient proof of ownership.
Earlier this week, the Lebanese government sent a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, urging him to pressure Israel into implementing Resolution 1701.
In a letter to Ban, Lebanon said that Israel had violated its airspace 347 times since the UN chief’s last report. It added that Israel had carried out respectively 33 and 75 sea and land violations.
Total violations since the adoption of Resolution 1701 in 2006 had reached 6,945, according to the letter. Lebanon’s memo referred to increased Israeli threats to Lebanon, saying “they have reached a point of threatening full destruction of its [the country’s] infrastructure.”
Also in the letter, Lebanon urged the international community to exert all efforts to put an end to such threats that destabilize Lebanon. – AFP, with The Daily Star
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