Israeli jet fighter violates the Lebanese airspace amid efforts to ease

One Israeli jet fighters yesterday violated the Lebanese airspace in south Lebanon which was exposed to Israeli raids in retaliation to the killing of one Israeli soldier on Tuesday, in an attack carried out by Hizbullah fighters against an Israeli bulldozer that crossed the Lebanese border.

The Lebanese police said that the Israeli warplane flew over large sections of south Lebanon especially the central sector.

On Tuesday evening the Israeli warplanes raided two former and empty bases for Hizbullah party near Alman and Zibqin villages. The raids resulted in material damage in one elementary school and destroyed glass of three houses.

The Israeli government stressed through its spokesman, Ave Bazner, that this raid is a retaliation to the Hizbullah attack, and that it does not seek any military escalation, holding Syria responsible for this tension.

Meantime, the deputy secretary general of the Hizbullah party, Sheikh Naem Qasem, denied in statements to al-Manar TV the attack to have any relations to Syria's recent initiatives concerning peace, noting that the Hizbullah only destroyed the Israeli bulldozers because it violated the borders.

Qasem ruled out the occurrence of military escalation but simultaneously renewed the party's determination to retaliate any Israeli violations of the Lebanese sovereignty.