Israel Airs Video of Hizbullah Blast Site
Israel on Tuesday aired a video of the explosion that ripped through the home of Hizbullah member Nasser Issa in the southern Lebanese village of Teir Felsay late Monday.
The images show Hizbullah fighters removing dozens of rockets out of Issa”s home after the explosion took place around 8:30 pm Monday and moved to another location.
Hizbullah removed the rockets from the scene in two trucks before allowing in U.N. investigators. The video, shot by an unmanned drone, also showed the removal of a particularly large piece of equipment that could be a large rocket or a type of launcher.
The Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon continued Tuesday to investigate the causes of the blast that wounded Abdel Nasser Issa, a Hizbullah member.
Following the blast, Israel army warned that Hizbullah members were still hiding arms inside their homes in violation of U.N. Resolution 1701.
The Israeli army said the blast "proves again the presence of weapons forbidden in southern Lebanon" under 1701, which ended the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The 34-day war killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
Resolution 1701 called for the removal of weapons in southern Lebanon from the hands of everyone except the Lebanese army and other state security forces.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hizbullah of rearming, and an Israeli army spokesman claimed on Tuesday night the group has "dozens of arms caches containing hundreds of rockets."
"The Israeli army considers that this explosion demonstrates once more the presence in southern Lebanon of prohibited arms," a statement said, adding that it had called on U.N. peacekeepers to open an investigation.
Israel demanded a U.N. probe into the blast. Israel”s ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, called for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to deal with what she called a "grave violation" of the resolution, the foreign ministry said.
"This is the second time in three months that an explosion has occurred in a Hizbullah arms depot, which proves that the movement has illegal arms south of the Litani River and is rebuilding its military structure," the statement said.
The resolution stipulates in particular that the area between the River and the Israeli border to its south must be free of all armed groups except for Lebanese security forces and U.N. peacekeepers.