Starting a war because of a tree ?

[HermantheGerman]

Two sides of the story Al Jazzera (arab) and Haaretz (jewish)



Troops die in Israel-Lebanon clash

At least two Lebanese and one Israeli soldier have been killed during an exchange of rocket and gunfire along the border between the two countries.
A journalist was also killed, and four more Lebanese soldiers wounded by Israeli shelling on Tuesday. The Israeli army did not say how the Israeli soldier was killed.
"The Israelis fired four rockets that fell near a Lebanese army position in the village of Adaisseh and the Lebanese army fired back," a Lebanese security official in the area said. Lebanese news sources reported that the journalist killed was Assaf Abou Rahhal, from the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.
The clashes erupted after Israeli soldiers reportedly attempted to uproot trees on the Lebanese side of the border.
'Maximum restraint'
A spokesman for Unifil, the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, confirmed the fighting and urged both sides to use "maximum restraint".
"Unifil peacekeepers are in the area and are trying to ascertain the circumstances of the incident and any possible casualties," Neeraj Singh said.
"Our immediate priority at this time is to restore calm in the area."
The United Nations Security Council held a brief meeting about the skirmish on Tuesday afternoon. It concluded without any official statement; Alain Le Roy, the head of UN peacekeeping operations, said the UN was still investigating.
Saad al-Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, called the raid a "violation of Lebanese sovereignty and demands".
in depth
He called in a statement for "the United Nations and the international community bear their responsibilities and pressure Israel to stop its aggression."
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from the border said that the streets in the area were empty.

"The border has been closed amid the tensions, but observers and analysts, and some representatives of Unifil believe this will remain an isolated incident," our correspondent said.
Michel Sleiman, the Lebanese president meanwhile, issued his own statement denouncing the clash as a violation of UN resolution 1701. That resolution ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and called for both Israel and Lebanon to respect the Blue Line, the UN-administered border between the two countries.
Sleiman also called on the Lebanese army to "confront any Israeli aggression, whatever the sacrifices".
"This is a very significant development," said Rula Amin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Beirut. "For the first time in years, clashes are taking place between Israel and the Lebanese army, not Hezbollah."
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said in a speech on Tuesday night that he ordered the group's militia not to get involved. He also threatened to retaliate against any future "Israeli aggression".
Roots of conflict
General Gadi Eisenkot, the head of Israel's northern command, predicted the clashes were a "one-time event".
Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, said Israel "holds the Lebanese government responsible" for the incident, and asked the Israeli envoy to the UN to file a complaint.
The fighting reportedly started when a group of Israeli army soldiers went close to the border to uproot some trees near the villages of Adaisseh and Kuferkilla.
Israeli security sources said that Israeli army engineers came under fire from Lebanese soldiers while working along the frontier and the troops shot back.

In a statement, the Israeli military said its soldiers came under fire while they were "on routine activity in Israeli territory in an area that lies between the blue line [the internationally recognised border between Israel and Lebanon] and the security fence, thus within Israeli territory".
Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Jerusalem, said "the overall picture that seems to be emerging from Israeli television reports is that the whole incident seems to have started over some misunderstanding".
"There was some kind of Israeli incursion perceived ... to have crossed over into Lebanese territory" which precipitated the exchange of fire, Rowland said.
Israeli TV has reported that Hezbollah was not involved in the skirmish.
Troops die in Israel-Lebanon clash - Middle East - Al Jazeera English



IDF believes single Lebanese officer behind border shooting

Lebanese company commander ordered sniper fire on Israeli post, which killed one Israeli officer and wounded another, IDF analysts believe.

Israel Defense Forces analysts believe that the Lebanese sniper fire at the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday, which killed Lt. Col. Dov Harari and seriously wounded Captain Ezra Lakia, was in fact an ambush planned by a Lebanese officer who was encouraged by his commanders. The exchange of fire began when Israeli soldiers approached the border in order to trim some bushes that had grown along the fence. The operation had been coordinated in advance with UNIFIL, which in turn informed the Lebanese army.
As in previous cases of such Israeli activity, the Lebanese army deployed soldiers to the area. After a round of yelling, unanswered by the Israeli troops, Lebanese snipers opened deliberate fire at the IDF observation post several hundred meters into Israel, the IDF said. Harari and Lakia had manned the observation post, and both sustained serious gunfire wounds.
According to information gathered by the IDF, the sniper fire was ordered by a commanding officer within the Lebanese army. The IDF has found no indication that the officer received an order to open fire, and believe that the decision was his alone. However, it is known that the particular officer was influenced by inciting remarks against Israel made by the top commanders of the Lebanese army in the recent past.
Following Israel's harsh response to the sniper fire, which included tank and artillery fire as well as the bombing from the air of Lebanese army posts, killing at least two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and President Michel Suleiman asked international bodies to impose an immediate cease-fire.
IDF believes single Lebanese officer behind border shooting - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

[zygote1]

There really are not two sides, just the truth.I know it is painful but here are the facts;

1. Israel advised UNIFIL of the shrub pruning operation in advance and received the OK.
2. The activity was on the Israeli side of the border and 300-400m behind the fence in Israeli territory, as confirmed by UNIFUL.
3. UNIFIL has confirmed that the Lebanese opened fired first. A Lebanese sniper took at the Israeli commander who was observing and significantly further back from the shrub pruning. Israel returned fire, in what I would call a restrained measure. If some arseholes decided to attack me I'd have rained napalm down on them.

[sabang]

Yeh, this clash doesn't seem like Israel's fault at all.

I'm always a bit cagey though, because whenever 'peace' talks are imminent, it seems the IDF picks up it's provocations. But not here. The border is pretty tense though:-


Published June 27th, 2000 - 02:00 GMT
The UN Security Council on Monday demanded that Israel end violations of Lebanese territory reported by UN troops, said French ambassador Jean-David Levitte, the council president.

Council members called on all parties to respect the line of withdrawal, which establishes the boundary between Israel and Lebanon following the pullout of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, he said.

According to diplomats in New York, the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon, in a report presented to the Security Council earlier Monday, have identified five such violations by Israeli forces.

Levitte said the Security Council members "reiterated their call upon the parties to respect the line," delineated by the United Nations and to end the "ongoing violations."

Since the Israelis ended their 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon on May 24, Beirut has complained of Israeli violations of the border in 17 places, and has made the full deployment of UNIFIL throughout the border zone conditional on these encroachments ending.
UN Security Council Demands Israel end Lebanon Border Violations | Al Bawaba

[12Call]

There really are not two sides, just the truth.I know it is painful but here are the facts;

1. Israel advised UNIFIL of the shrub pruning operation in advance and received the OK.
2. The activity was on the Israeli side of the border and 300-400m behind the fence in Israeli territory, as confirmed by UNIFUL.
3. UNIFIL has confirmed that the Lebanese opened fired first. A Lebanese sniper took at the Israeli commander who was observing and significantly further back from the shrub pruning. Israel returned fire, in what I would call a restrained measure. If some arseholes decided to attack me I'd have rained napalm down on them.

Video suggests they had crossed the border.

[HermantheGerman]

The truth is that Israel loves to cut down trees (incl. international waters) ! Considering how many Olive Trees that they have cut down belonging to Palis....

If some arseholes decided to attack me I'd have rained napalm down on them.

According to you, Israel should have been napalmed already a thousand times.

...which will happen eventually !

[HermantheGerman]

1. Israel advised UNIFIL of the shrub pruning operation in advance and received the OK.

I believe they told them to wait a bit. Things where not cleared up yet. Since when does Israel need any approval of what is going on INSIDE their borders

2. The activity was on the Israeli side of the border and 300-400m behind the fence in Israeli territory, as confirmed by UNIFUL.

Does Israel have borders ? Where is the Line ? Germany, Poland, Dubai, Australia ?

3. UNIFIL has confirmed that the Lebanese opened fired first. A Lebanese sniper took at the Israeli commander who was observing and significantly further back from the shrub pruning. Israel returned fire, in what I would call a restrained measure. If some arseholes decided to attack me I'd have rained napalm down on them.

Opened fire first. Correct !
Restrained measure. No ?


With Air Support, Helicopters firing is the typical israeli response.
I'am surprised they did'nt level a Lebanese Village...like they did so often.





P.S. I like how Israelis like to quote UNIFIL when it suits them.

[pickel]

The activity was on the Israeli side of the border and 300-400m behind the fence in Israeli territory, as confirmed by UNIFUL.

UNIFIL didn't confirm it in either of the articles in the OP. Where did you see that?

Video suggests they had crossed the border.

I'd like to see that, got a link?

[English Noodles]

I remember reading about a similar thing happening in korea when two US soldiers were killed by North Korean soldiers because of a tree.

The axe murder incident (Korean: 판문점 도끼 살인 사건) was the killing of two United States Army officers by North Korean soldiers on August 18, 1976, in the Joint Security Area (JSA) located in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which forms the de facto border between North and South Korea. The killings, credited to Kim Jong-il's power consolidation,[1] and the response three days later (Operation Paul Bunyan) heightened tensions between North and South Korea as well as their respective allies, the People's Republic of China and the United States.
The incident is also known as the hatchet incident and the poplar tree incident because the object of the conflict was a poplar tree standing in the JSA.

Initial trimming
On August 18, 1976, a group of five Korean Service Corps (KSC) personnel escorted by a UNC security team consisting of the Joint Security Force (JSF) Company Commander (Captain Arthur Bonifas), his South Korean (ROK) Army counterpart, Captain Kim, the platoon leader of the current platoon in the area (1st Lt. Mark Barrett), and 11 enlisted personnel, both American and South Korean,[2] went into the JSA to trim the tree as previously scheduled with the KPA delegation. The two captains did not wear sidearms, as members of the Joint Security Area were limited to only five armed officers and 30 armed enlisted personnel at a time. However, there were mattocks in the back of the 2½ ton truck. The KSC workers had the axes they brought to prune the tree branches. The tree had been scheduled to be trimmed seven days earlier, but rain had forced the work to be rescheduled.
After trimming began, 15 to 16 KPA soldiers appeared, commanded by Senior Lt. Pak Chul, whom the UNC soldiers had previously nicknamed "Lt. Bulldog" due to a history of confrontations.[3][4] Pak and his subordinates appeared to observe the trimming without concern for approximately 15 minutes, until he abruptly told the UNC to cease the activity stating the tree could not be trimmed "because Kim Il Sung personally planted it and nourished it and it’s growing under his supervision."[5] Capt. Bonifas ordered the detail to continue, and turned his back on Lt. Pak Chul.[6]

After being ignored by Capt. Bonifas, Pak sent a runner across the Bridge of No Return. Within minutes a North Korean guard truck crossed the bridge and approximately 20 more North Korean guards disembarked carrying crowbars and clubs. Pak again demanded that the tree trimming stop, and when Capt. Bonifas again turned his back on him, Pak removed his watch, carefully wrapped it in a handkerchief, placed it in his pocket, and then shouted "Kill them!" as he swung a karate chop to the back of Capt. Bonifas' neck.[6][7] Using axes dropped by the tree-trimmers, the KPA forces attacked the two U.S. soldiers, Capt. Bonifas and Lt. Barrett, and wounded all but one of the UNC guards.[3][8]
While Capt. Bonifas died instantly, Lt. Barrett jumped a low wall which led into a 15 ft. (4½ m) deep tree-filled depression. The depression was not visible from the road. The entire fight lasted for only about 20–30 seconds before the UNC Force managed to disperse the KPA guards and place Capt. Bonifas' body in their truck.[7] However, there was no sign of Lt. Barrett and the two UNC guards at OP#5 could not see them.
They did, however, observe the KPA guards grab (by the heels) approximately five members of their own force and drag them back across the bridge. They also observed the KPA guards at KPA#8 (along the UNC emergency egress road) exhibiting strange behavior, in that one guard would take an axe and go down into the depression for a couple of minutes and then come back up and hand the axe to another guard who would repeat the process. This went on for approximately 90 minutes until the UNC guards at OP#5 were informed that Lt. Barrett was missing, at which time they informed their superiors about the KPA activity in the depression. A search and rescue squad was quickly dispatched and found Lt. Barrett had been attacked with the axe by the North Koreans.[9]
A helicopter on a training mission was also sent to the location (its crew issued yellow armbands and .45 automatics) and used for a medevac, but Barrett did not survive.
A corporal witnessed the attack from OP#5 and recorded the incident with both a camera and a movie camera.[2][6]

Axe murder incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Pol the Pot]

Both countries should be unarmed, fenced in and then have a man to man slugfest, last man standing .

[FlyFree]

Both countries should be unarmed, fenced in and then have a man to man slugfest, last man standing .........

......should be shot.

[harrybarracuda]

I'm right behind Israel bombing the shit out of Lebanon and wiping Hezbollah off the face of the earth.

And I'm no fan of the blue suede shoes.

[billy the kid]

So the israeli soldiers double-up now as gardeners .

[HermantheGerman]

I'm right behind Israel bombing the shit out of Lebanon and wiping Hezbollah off the face of the earth.

And I'm no fan of the blue suede shoes.

Yet amidst the buildings adorned with marks from bygone bullets and bombs, are the beaches and beating nightlife of Beirut. In fact, Skybar, the city's premier nightspot is rated as one of the world's top clubs.

Why not leave the Lebanon alone and bomb the shit out of Israel and Hezbollah.

[English Noodles]

Here's a little video about the Korean incident I mentioned.