Erecting a fence along the Lebanon-Israel border

UN secures Lebanon-Israel border with barbed wire
Thursday, 10 April, 2008 (Yalibnan)

'About 50 UN soldiers from the Spanish battalion began setting up the barbed-wire fence in the area north of the (border) village of Ghajar,' said Yasmina Bouziane, spokeswoman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, the UN established the so-called Blue Line to separate the Lebanese and Israeli border. The Blue Line placed a third of the village of Ghajar in Lebanon and two thirds of it a zone annexed by Israel.
The decision to set up the barrier was made on April 2 at a meeting between UNIFIL commander General Claudio Graziano and officials from the Lebanese and Israeli armies, Bouziane said.
The three parties agreed that UNIFIL would set up the barrier north of Ghajar 'in order to prevent violations of the Blue Line,' Bouziane said.
'The aim of setting the new barbed wire is also to secure the prevention of drug trafficking in the area,' Bouziane said.
A Lebanese drug trafficker was killed and another wounded by Israeli soldiers in the area in February.
UNIFIL, which was created in 1978 after an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, enhanced and boosted its mission extended in August 2006 when the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1701 that ended a 33-day war by Israel on the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah.