Israel Israeli MFA

TUNDRA TABLOIDS IN CONFERENCE CALL WITH IDF PRESS OFFICER LT.COL AVITAL LEIBOVITCH ON SYRIAN AND LEBANESE BORDER RIOTS…….

Lt.Col Avital Leibovitch: I want to give a rundown of the few events that we have today in the Naqba days as the Palestinians call it, I will begin with the north with the Syrian-Israeli border.

During the noon hours we noticed that a few thousands of Syrians were gathering up in the area of Majdal Shams, the Syrian area of the Majdal Shams village, and we know that every year this riot or protest there, so this was something that was not unusual.

However, suddenly approximately one thousand people ran for the border, the Syrian border fence, amongst them were women, children, youths, then a few dozens of them crossed the fence, they broke down the fence, they bust into the village of Majdal Sham (Israeli side).

The commander in the area decided to only open fire selectively for those people who targeted the structures in the area. In this way I believe it would prevent loss of life. I can also tell you that some of the Majdal Sham members, civilians, actually assisted those Syrians in passing the border.

I can tell you a half hour ago a group of Syrians left the village to Syria and few hours ago another group, maybe there are a few still left there but in the near time they will leave the village. We know that there was another area, in Quneitra which was relatively quiet, not violence just regular riots.

(whatever that means 🙂

That’s the Syrian and Israeli border.

Moving on to the Lebanese-Israeli border there were two places of riots, one was in the area not far from Matula, the Israeli Matula of course. There, thousands of Lebanese rioters,..I can tell you that in that area the Lebanese army was very active, even used live fire in order to control those rioters.

The second place was Maroun a-Ras there I can tell you that there were also hundreds of rioters that tried to break the border fence and the border fence. I can tell that that group we decided to open fire effectively in order to, not to target innocent life but those who tried to approach the border security fence between us and Lebanon.

I can tell you that the entire border, the Israeli-Lebanese border and the Syrian-Israeli border is 200 kilometers long, you can understand that it is a big operation on our side. We have ten wounded soldiers and three officers, altogether thirteen. They were wounded lightly, they were wounded from hurling rocks of different sizes.

In the Majda Shams area, the estimation is approximately thirty of the Syrians were wounded lightly, and we gave them some medical attention. Moving down to Judea and Samaria the Qalandia area there was some protest of some 600 people, it was bigger than usual. We used tear gas in order to disperse them, they used different kinds of rocks, Molotov cocktails. We are now by the way publishing footage showing that they hid behind ambulances to hurl rocks. Over all it was a few hours and pretty much contained, although it was pretty much violent as well.

Going to the southern border, in the late morning hours we identified a large number of Gazans walking towards the Eretz crossing, trying to infiltrate the Israeli side of Eretz crossing. They were very well planned and organized as well. Fortunately it did not succeed we were able to stop them. We opened fire as warning shots in order to get them to stay on the Gaza side. That was the day, hopefully tomorrow will be a quieter day. The idea is to be controlling all these areas.

NOTE: Q&A is below the fold.

Q & A

-Were there any shots being fired from the Syrian or Lebanese borders?

The Lebanese army used live fire in order to disperse the Lebanese rioters, but I don’t know of any live fire that was used on the Syrian’s part. I can tell you that a 150 meters away from the place the Syrians were the rioters of Majdal Shams, Syrian policemen were present but did not intervene. The reason we assume that this kind of event took place is that the Syrian regime is basically trying to divert the international attention from all the vicious acts that have been taking place in the center of the Syrian cities to the Israel Syrian border.

Do you think that the situation is now under control, or are you expecting more of these kinds of attacks. Or larger attacks as cover for Hezbollah? There have been rumors today.

I think that it’s under control, I also think there is one thing in common with all the events that occurred today, and these are very extreme and violent organizations that are standing behind this. I’m talking about Hizbollah, Hamas and I’m talking about of course, Iran.

Were there any intelligence that suggested the coordination between the Syrians the Lebanese and what happened inside Samaria and Judea?

We did have the intelligence, the thing in common was that all these places is actually coordinated by terror organizations, talking about Hizbolla, Iran, Syria is also a central place as well.

Question about border ruckus on the Lebanon border (unclear)

There were two areas of protest, near the Good fence in the Matula area that is where the Lebanese army did react with very great force. So there the IDF was pretty much in control, there was no need to intervene in a great way. However, in the other area of Maroun a-Ras there were no intervention by the Lebanese army and we did come across Lebanese trying to cross the border fence between Israel and Lebanon. This is why we had to react in that area.

 

7 Responses

  1. Thanks for the post, KGS. It’s a shame that the IDF has to deal with this.

    1. Thanks Bee Sting, much appreciated and glad to be of service, and happy to hear that you like the TT. Music to the ear!

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