Lebanon, December 29: Lebanese anti-aircraft guns opened fire on four Israeli fighter planes that were violating its air space on Tuesday, the military said.
“The army’s anti-aircraft guns fired in the direction of four Phantom-type enemy Israeli planes that had been overflying the (southeastern) Hasbaya region at low altitude since this (Tuesday) morning,” an army spokesman said.
By mid-morning the planes were still conducting their exercises in the region, he added.
The army publishes almost daily reports of Israeli violations of Lebanese air space. But it rarely opens fire unless the Israeli planes fly within range of its guns.
Israeli infringements of Lebanese airspace are a breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the devastating 2006 war between Israel and resistance group Hezbollah.
The war claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
Hezbollah, originally a resistance group formed to counter an Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, had forced the Israeli military out of Lebanon in 2000. Israel, however, continues to occupy the Lebanese Shabaa Farms.
—Agencies