Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Israeli warplanes overfly Lebanon on Yahoo! News

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Israeli warplanes overfly Lebanon

Mon Mar 13, 8:26 AM ET

Israeli warplanes violated Lebanon's airspace, police said, a day after Israel announced a maximum alert along the border amid fears of an attack by the Shiite fundamentalist militia Hezbollah.

Lebanese police said three Israeli warplanes flew for 25 minutes at low altitude over the southern port city of Tyre, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Beirut, as well as the surrounding southern border region with Israel.

The Israeli army said Sunday it had gone into a "maximum" state of alert on the Lebanese border to thwart any new offensive from the Lebanese militia ahead of the Jewish state's March 28 election.

A spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Milos Struger, told reporters that the situation was "tense along the Blue Line" that serves as the border between Lebanon and the Jewish state.

Struger added that UNIFIL was in contact with "all parties" and had asked them for "restraint."

Beirut has filed repeated complaints to the United Nations -- which has in turn called for Israel to halt violations of Lebanese airspace -- following the May 2000 Israeli troop pullout from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.

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