Lebanon to file complaint against Israel for wall inside its territory

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BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s president asked the country’s foreign minister Saturday to work on filing a complaint against Israel for building a wall inside Lebanese territory.

A statement released by President Joseph Aoun’s office said he has asked the foreign minister to include in the complaint statement issued by the United Nations peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL that is deployed along the border with Israel.

On Friday, UNIFIL said in a statement that the Israeli army erected a wall southwest of the Lebanese village of Yaroun.

UNIFIL said the wall crossed the border line, rendering more than 4,000 square meters (43,000 square feet) of Lebanese territory “inaccessible to the Lebanese people.”

UNIFIL said it has informed the Israeli army of its findings and requested that they remove the wall.

It said that construction of the wall violates the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended that 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire reached in November last year. UNIFIL added that the wall violates “Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The Israeli military said the wall, whose construction began in 2022, is part of a broader plan for reinforcements along the border.

It said that since the start of the war the Israeli army has been advancing a series of measures, including reinforcing the physical barrier along the northern border.

The Israeli army said it should be emphasized that the wall does not cross the Blue Line, the boundary between Lebanon and Israel drawn up by the U.N. which UNIFIL monitors and patrols.

The Israel-Hezbollah war started when Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September 2024.