Land, Aerial Monitoring on Both Sides of Border after Rocket Attacks, Shelling

The Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers intensified their patrols along the border with the Jewish state as the Israeli military upped its presence in the occupied Shebaa Farms area, the state-run National News Agency reported on Tuesday.

NNA said the Lebanese army stepped up its patrols on the ground and on the coast.

The soldiers are backed by UNIFIL troops who made an aerial monitoring in the area south of the Litani river.

Its naval units also heavily monitored the territorial waters as part of the mandate of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701.

Their level of alertness came as Israeli warplanes overflew the South along with heavy shelling on Lebanese territories that stopped around 1:30 am.

The shelling came in retaliation to a rocket attack on northern Israel from Lebanese territory. There were similar rocket attacks in the past four days.

The Lebanese army and UNIFIL patrols on the Lebanese side of the border were accompanied by a high level of alert in the occupied Shebaa Farms zone.

The members of the units monitored activities in Lebanon using binoculars, NNA added.

UNIFIL said the situation was calm after the latest attack and the retaliatory shelling.

It said in a statement that the peacekeepers intensified their patrols to thwart more incidents that threaten the safety of residents and security in southern Lebanon.

UNIFIL added that it was investigating the assault, which it described as a dangerous violation of resolution 1701.

G.K.

M.T.