There has been an incident on the Lebanese border, in which Lebanese Army troops fired on Israeli soldiers who were cutting trees near the border fence. The soldiers were on the Lebanese side of the fence, but on the Israeli side of the border.
More precisely, the Lebanese targeted the Israeli commanders who were supervising the operation, and at least one, Lt. Col. Dov Harari, was killed. Another officer, Capt. Ezra Lakia, was critically wounded.
This is the worst such incident since 2006.
Here is a link to an Israeli blog where news is being presented live as events unfold.
Update [0930 PDT]: The IDF says it was Hizballah fighters in LAF (Lebanese Army) uniforms “some LAF units are strongly influenced by Hizballah”.
They are calling it an ‘ambush’. It looks like cold-blooded murder to me.
It IS Hezbollah, stupid!
Just who you think the Lebanese Army in southern Lebanon are? Boy scouts?
It is cold-blooded murder and Hezbollah has learned it has nothing to fear from Israel except a few of its own dead and the pathetic sight of the Jews running mewling to the UN this was a violation!
That’s what they call an act of war these days.
No. This was regular Lebanese Army, and that is worse, because they are now acting right alongside Hezbollah, which to my knowledge, they have never done before on the border.
Israel did not merely go “mewing” to the UN; they sent in helicopter gunships and blew up a command post. They gave better than they got (as usual), but the response was still restrained. All the same, I see this as a clear attempt by Hezbollah (i.e., Iran)-dominated Lebanon to provoke war with Israel.
I don’t know that the bad guy community really wants war now; I don’t think they are monolithic about this. I strongly suspect they are divided; one camp says “strike now while there are more than two years left in the most anti-Israel administration in U.S. history”, while others may not want to give Israel a good excuse to take a shot at Iran’s nuke sites before Iran actually has nukes.
There is lack of discipline, great tension, and increasing firepower being concentrated on Israel’s northern frontier. I expect things to blow up into a full-scale war anytime between right now and November.