The IDF on Sunday, Sept. 1, carried out preventive operations across the Lebanese border to impede attempts by Hizballah forces to use wooded areas for stealthy infiltration, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Israel forces fired 155mm shells into the Shebaa Farms pocket of Mt Dov, the northernmost point of the most sensitive border region where the Israel, Lebanon and Syria borders intersect. Our sources report that they were fired by guns posted on the Israeli Golan to the south.
Meanwhile, an Israeli drone dropped flammable material on a pine forest in this area, igniting a fire, according to a Lebanese report that was confirmed by the Israeli military spokesman. Heavy Israeli machine gunfire was also aimed into the Shebaa Farms area to thwart enemy military movements there. Lebanese forces report that local people are trying to extinguish the flames.
Heavy Israeli earth-moving equipment is working in the border sector in the Galilee panhandle and town of Metulah opposite the Lebanese town of Marjeyoun to erect high sand barriers. Behind them are IDF tank and artillery patrols ,while Israeli UAVs conduct low-flying passes over Marjeyoun and its vicinity.
DEBKAfile’s military sources also report that a string of IDF checkpoints and roadblocks have been thrown up along many of the roads of the Golan, the Galilee panhandle and the northern highway. The roadblocks are removed from time to time to allow the traffic to pass.
