Lebanon: Israel releases Lebanese teenager

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Israelis have released a Lebanese teenager after detaining him for several hours Friday when they captured him on a border area, the Lebanese government said.

Security sources said Israel released 15-year-old Mahmoud Hussein al-Haj, from the southern Lebanese village of Houla near the technical fence dividing the two countries. They said he was released after the intervention of the U.N. International Force in Lebanon.

The official Lebanese news agency earlier reported al-Haj was snatched by Israeli troops who crossed over the technical fence, violating the Blue Line, a U.N.-demarcated frontier between Lebanon and Israel.

It claimed the boy was taken in southern Lebanon while Indonesian peacekeeping battalion from UNIFIL watched."

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20070302-113755-8402r

[breakaleg]

1. Are they saying that a Lebanese civlian was takin by Israel where the IDF would have had to cross

their border to retrieve him?

Wow, is that considered an act of war?

[oberliner]

2. More info from Lebanon Daily Star

BEIRUT/HOULA: The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) oversaw the return of a Lebanese man being detained by the Israeli Army after he was picked up in the vicinity of the UN-demarcated Blue Line on Friday. "UNIFIL today facilitated a return to Lebanon of a young man who had been taken into custody by the ," UNIFIL spokesperson Liam McDowell told The Daily Star. "The juvenile was transferred into Lebanese custody at 17:15 at the UN border position at Ras al-Naqoura."

Officials at the Lebanese Internal Security Force could not be contacted before The Daily Star went to print.

Hajj was reportedly driving a moped back and forth across the UN-demarcated Blue Line around 1 p.m., near the Sheikh al-Abaad Shrine, Lebanese security sources told The Daily Star. The Abaad Shrine lies across the UN-demarcated Blue Line. The National News Agency, however, reported that Hajj had crossed on foot.

The security source said that Hajj had ignored calls from the Indonesian UNIFIL troops to back away from the Blue Line and that the peackeepers had captured the incident on tape.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=80128