Conflicting Reports about Explosion at Hizbullah Official”s House
While security sources said as many as eight people vanished in the explosion that ripped through a garage of a Hizbullah member”s home in south Lebanon on Monday, the Shiite group denied any fatalities but said one person was wounded.
The sources said the explosion at around 8:30pm Monday knocked down a three-story building that might have been used to store weapons.
Reuters news agency quoted Lebanese security sources as saying that five people had been killed, including a Hizbullah official, in a munitions explosion in his home.
It quoted Hizbullah spokesman Ibrahim Moussawi as saying that one person was wounded and the cause of the blast was under investigation.
But al Liwaa daily on Tuesday, citing an official security report, said eight people were killed and several others were wounded in the explosion that was the result of a left-over Israeli projectile from the 2006 war.
An-Nahar newspaper, for its part, quoted security sources as saying five people were killed in the blast that tore apart the house of Hizbullah official Nasser Issa in Teir Felsay east of the port city of Tyre.
It said the first story was blackened by a fire.
The security sources said Issa found the projectile near a river in Teir Filsay and brought it home. The blast occured as Issa tried to empty the shell from the explosives, the sources added.
They said Issa, a Hizbullah member, was rushed to hospital with serious injuries.
Meanwhile, the Voice of Lebanon radio station reported a different version of the story. It quoted its correspondent in south Lebanon as saying that the explosion was the result of a blast that ripped through a rocket launcher at Issa”s garage.
Spokeswoman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon Yasmina Bouziane said UNIFIL was aware of the blast and was in contact with the Lebanese army.
"We are looking into the circumstances of the incident," Bouziane said.
Regardless of Hizbullah”s denial, the Israeli army said in a statement the explosion "proves again the presence of weapons forbidden in southern Lebanon" under U.N. Resolution 1701.
"The Israeli army has asked the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to launch an investigation," the statement said.
A July explosion in an abandoned building in Khirbit Selim in southern Lebanon was said to have been caused by a fire in a secret Hizbullah arms depot. Hizbullah said at the time that the building housed ammunition leftover from Israeli attacks on Lebanon.