HASBAYA, Lebanon (AFP)
U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon began on Thursday erecting a barbed-wire fence along the border with Israel to prevent breaches of the "Blue Line" aimed at keeping peace between the two neighbors.
"UNIFIL soldiers began laying the barbed-wire fence in the area north of the (border) village of Ghajar," Yasmina Bouziane, spokeswoman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, told AFP.
About 50 Spanish peacekeepers are installing the barbed wire fence north of the so-called "Blue Line", set up by the United Nations eight years ago to keep the peace between the two neighbors, an AFP correspondent said.
The plotting of the Blue Line in 2000 by the United Nations when Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon, placed a third of the village of Ghajar in Lebanon and two thirds of it a zone annexed by Israel.
The decision to set up the barrier was made on April 2 at a meeting between UNIFIL commander General Claudio Graziano and officials from Lebanese and Israeli armies, Bouziane said.
The three parties agreed that UNIFIL would set up the barrier north of Ghajar "in order to prevent violations of the Blue Line," Garziano had said then.
"The prevention of drug trafficking in the area is also one of the goals of the barrier," Bouziane said.
There have been only few incidents along the border since the end of the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah militia.
A Lebanese drug trafficker was killed and another wounded by Israeli soldiers in February.
UNIFIL, which was created in 1978 after an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, saw its mission extended by UN Security Council resolution 1701 which ended the 34-day conflict in August 2006. |
