IR captures three "Israeli" enemy soldiers

The Islamic Resistance (IR) issued a statement in which it reported the following :

Carrying out Hizbullah’s pledge over liberating every detainee and hostage and every inch of our occupied soil and supporting the militant and great Palestinian people in its blessed Intifada, the IR’s heroic mujahedeen staged swift and qualitative attacks against a number of “Israeli” occupation troops’ positions at the Lebanese occupied Shibaa Farms area. The IR managed to capture a number of “Israeli” soldiers who were completely evacuated from the scene to a safe place.

The IR renews its pledge for the honorable hostages and promises them with the freedom. Also, it gives this blessed and qualitative military operation as a present to the spirits of the oppressed boy Mohammad Al-Durra and all of the martyrs of Al-Aqsa Intifada, promising that it will always stand by this noble people and that it will not forget Al-Aqsa Mosque whatever the sacrifices are.

For its part, AFP confirmed that Hizbullah kidnapped three Israeli soldiers in an ambush in the occupied Shebaa Farms.

"Our fighters ambushed an Israeli patrol at the Shebaa Farms, within the Lebanese occupied territories of Shebaa at 1:40 p.m. (1040 GMT)," said a statement by the Islamic Resistance, Hezbollah's military arm.

"The fighters fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the patrol and engaged in a clash during which our fighters succeeded in capturing three enemy soldiers and liquidating the rest," it said.

An earlier AFP statement said that Hizbullah fired 50 salvoes of Katyushas, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades from southeast Lebanon Saturday at Israeli posts in the Shebaa Farms, a mountainous area occupied by Israel on the border with Syria and Lebanon, security sources said.

The shelling targetted Israeli posts in the farms of Rowaissat al-Aalam, Rowaissat as-Sammaqa, Ramta, Jall al-Ahmar and the army observation post towering over the mountainous region, they said.

The area hit the headlines earlier this year, when Lebanon demanded its return as part of the Israeli withdrawal from its territory in May, but Israel says it captured the farms from Syria in 1967 and their future is to be determined in talks with Damascus.

In a statement issued earlier also, AFP reported that three Israeli soldiers were wounded in a hail of mortar fire and rockets launched by Hezbollah movement on the Israeli-Lebanon border, Israeli army radio said.

They are the first soldiers wounded by Hezbollah since the army's May withdrawal from Lebanon after 22 years of occupation, the radio said.

It said it would give other details "when it is able to do so," referring to military censorship on details on the incident.

Hezbollah said earlier it had captured "several soldiers" from the Shebaa farms area on the border with Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

An army spokesman said a press conference would be held in the next few hours but gave no further information, saying only that "shooting and fighting is continuing at the border."

Earlier, Two Palestinian refugees were killed Saturday and 13 others wounded when Israeli soldiers fired shots at protestors throwing stones at the Lebanese-Israeli border, medical sources told AFP.

One of them was identified as Hassan Hassaneyn, 23, from the refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut, who died upon arrival at hospital in the southern town of Bint Jbeil, they told AFP.

The shooting occured when hundreds of Palestinian refugees gathered at the border and started hurling stones against Israeli troops on the other side.

The Palestinians, from various camps across Lebanon, were waving Palestinian flags and shouting "Death to Israel" at about a dozen Israeli soldiers backed by four jeeps and a personnel carrier on the other side.

The border confrontation was the first since a wave of protests against Israeli "massacres" of more than 80 Palestinians in the past week in the Palestinian territories, Jerusalem and parts of Israel.