WarSclerotic

The Lebanese army is sending reinforcements to the border with Israel, Lebanese media outlets reported Sunday. The move comes amid fears of a security escalation once IDF engineering units begin working on the Lebanese side of the border to neutralize cross-border terrorist tunnels dug by the Hezbollah terrorist group.

Last week, Israel began an open-ended operation to destroy the tunnels, which is expected to continue for weeks and possibly months.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot met with Maj. Gen. Stefano Del Col, head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, on Sunday to discuss Hezbollah’s attack tunnels.

IDF Spokesperson’s Unit

Eizenkot told Del Col the tunnels are a “blatant violation” of U.N. cease-fire Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah.

He expressed the importance of the peacekeepers in enforcing the resolution and working to neutralize the tunnels on the Lebanese side of the border, and said responsibility for the tunnels ultimately falls on the Lebanese government.

Hezbollah, for its part, maintained its policy of “denial and ridicule” toward Israel’s anti-tunnel operation.

Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run news agency, SANA, reported that Syrian air defenses had intercepted Israeli targets in the skies around Damascus international airport.

But later in the day it retracted the report, saying the attack did not actually happen.

“Our air defenses intercepted enemy aerial targets in the vicinity of Damascus international airport in southern Damascus,” SANA said in its initial report.

It was speculated that Iranian militias stationed in the area were the actual targets of the alleged attack.

The agency later removed the report from its website. Later, it quoted a source at the Damascus international airport as saying, “There was no attack on the airport and the air traffic is normal.”

However, U.K.-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there had been firing near the airport.

“Several explosion sounds were heard in Damascus suburbs … as air defenses were launched” close to the airport, it said.