IDF Blows Up Hezbollah Outpost After Mount Dov Shelled From Lebanon

Jerusalem, 8 October, 2023 (TPS) -- The Israel Defense Forces blew up a Hezbollah tent on Sunday morning that the Lebanese terror group provocatively set up in Israeli territory in April, it was allowed to be published.

The action came after Mount Dov was shelled from Lebanon in the early hours of Sunday morning. Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the shelling. The IDF retaliated with artillery fire.

The encampment was set up on the Israeli side of the border in April in an area south of the real border — but north of an Israeli security barrier — near Mount Dov where the border converges with Syria. The encampment is also a few hundred meters away from a Hezbollah border outpost on the Lebanese side of the border.

While the encampment was in an isolated location and not in proximity to any Israeli communities, it was in an area where the Israel Defense Forces continuously operate to thwart incursions.

Hezbollah removed part of the outpost under international pressure, but threatened to escalate violence if Israel tried to forcibly remove it. Israel pursued a diplomatic solution, preferring Hezbollah remove the tent on its own.

The Blue Line demarcating the 120 km-long border was created in 2000 by UN cartographers to verify Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, which the UN Security Council later certified as complete. The border runs from Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean coast to Mount Dov, where the Israeli-Lebanese border converges with Syria. Hezbollah says it does not recognize the Blue Line and disputes numerous points along the border.

Among those points is a strip of land on Mount Dov itself, which Israel captured from Syria. Hezbollah claims the area called Shebaa Farms belongs to Lebanon. Syria has not commented on the matter.