Two Lebanese demonstrators were wounded by Israeli fire Friday when dozens rallied on the Lebanon-Israel border to protest the Jewish state’s strikes on the Palestinian Gaza Strip, state media reported.
They were wounded “by two Israeli shells that fell near them after a number of youths tried to enter the town of Metula” in northern Israel, the National News Agency said.
In the aftermath, “the Lebanese army and security forces were deployed… to stop the youths from advancing” again, the NNA added.
The wounded were taken to hospital in Marjayoun in southern Lebanon.
The protesters, some carrying Palestinian flags and that of the group Hezbollah — arch-enemy of Israel — gathered in the Khiam plain, opposite Metula, a few dozen metres (yards) from the border, an AFP photographer said.
They later set fire to the area, with the flames spreading “all the way to the border”, he added.
The Israeli army confirmed on Twitter its tanks had “fired warning shots at a number of rioters… who had crossed into Israeli territory”.
They “sabotaged the fence and set fire to it… before returning to Lebanese territory”, it added, without mentioning any wounded.
On Thursday, three rockets were fired from southern Lebanon near the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh toward Israel, a Lebanese military source said.
Israel’s army said the rockets landed in the sea.
A source close to Hezbollah said the Lebanese Shiite group had no link to the incident.
