Lebanon turns to UN for Israeli breach

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=123190§ionid=351020203


Lebanon has lodged a complaint with the United Nations Security Council against the weekend violation of its border by Israeli troops.

"Lebanon filed a complaint on Monday to the UN Security Council over Israel's crossing the Blue Line into Lebanese territory on Saturday near the Hasbani river," AFP quoted a foreign ministry as saying on Tuesday.

"This is a violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and Resolution 1701," said the official who was speaking on condition of anonymity.

"At 6:45 a.m, an Israeli patrol, containing 11 members, entered a resort on the [Hasbani] River, 70 meters inside Lebanon's border. They removed the steering wheel of a bulldozer which was parked inside the resort," Lebanon said in a Sunday statement. "They went back to the east bank of the river south of the village of Ghajar," it added.

The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, also known as UNIFIL, said however, that it only had evidence of Israeli troops crossing the technical fence, but not the Blue Line.

The so-called Blue Line was demarcated by the United Nations following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, which ended Tel Aviv's 22-year occupation of the region.

The UN Security Council Resolution 1701 ended a month-long conflict between Israel and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.

Beirut officials have ever since been complaining about Israeli airplanes' violation of its airspace.

Palestinian PM Haniyeh calls for West Bank uprising

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119319§ionid=351020202


The democratically elected Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has called for uprisings in the occupied West Bank over a controversial Israeli plan to confiscate two holy sites in the territory as "national heritage."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that the regime is planning to include Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron in a "national heritage plan".

His remarks drew protests from the Palestinians, the United Nations, Jordan and Egypt.

"The decision requires a real response in the West Bank and for the people to rise up in the face of the Israeli occupation and to break every shackle in confronting it," Haniyeh said Tuesday.

"(The project) aims to erase our identity, alter our Islamic monuments and steal our history," he added.

In Hebron there were sporadic clashes near the Ibrahim Mosque above the Tomb of the Patriarchs but there were no reports of casualties.

Meanwhile, in Bethlehem shops and schools were closed in a day-long general strike, AFP reported.