Lebanon-Israel Border Area Quiet After Concerns of Another War Breaking Out

posted on: Jan 31, 2015

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Israel appeared Thursday to be seeking calm a day after clashes between the two raised concerns about another war erupting in the Middle East.

The volatile border zone was quiet, but both sides were on high alert after the fighting Wednesday that claimed the lives of two Israeli soldiers and a U.N. peacekeeper from Spain.Clashes in 2006 in the area led to a brief war that killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon and 165 in Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the violence on Iran, which is Hezbollah’s primary financial backer and weapons supplier.

“It is Iran that is responsible,” he said at a memorial Thursday for former prime minister Ariel Sharon.

“This is the same Iran that is now trying to achieve an agreement, via the major powers, that would leave it with the ability to develop nuclear weapons,” he said in an apparent criticism of U.S.-led negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com