Israel’s army said on Saturday it had located another tunnel crossing into its territory from Lebanon the third such discovery since launching an operation to expose and destroy alleged Hezbollah “attack tunnels”.
The Israeli military “has located an additional Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel” spokesman Jonathan Conricus claimed declining to give details on its precise location or dimensions.
“The tunnel crosses into Israel; like the first tunnel it is not yet operational and does not pose an imminent threat to Israeli communities” he said in a briefing with journalists according to AFP.
On Tuesday the army launched an operation dubbed “Northern Shield” to destroy tunnels it said were dug under the border by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
On Thursday the military announced that it had uncovered a second Hezbollah tunnel crossing into Israeli territory Haaretz reported.
Conricus said on Saturday that the army had placed explosives in the newly exposed tunnel to prevent its use as a means to infiltrate Israel but had not yet destroyed it.
Despite not having its exact location Conricus said Israel asked UNIFIL the UN mission monitoring the border region to “take action and block the tunnel on the Lebanese side”.
Following the army’s announcement Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the operation to track the tunnels “is in its beginning”.
“We’ll continue to act till its completion” he said in a statement.
The announcement of the new find came after Israeli soldiers on Saturday opened fire at what they perceived to be three “Hezbollah activists” approaching the border where the army was carrying out engineering work.
Lebanon’s official NNA news agency said Israeli forces fired shots in the air east of the village of Mays al-Jabal after they had been surprised because of heavy fog by a routine Lebanese army patrol.
