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Hezbollah Disguised as Peacekeepers to Kidnap IDF Soldiers
The Israeli army believes the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas who kidnapped three Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border in October were disguised as United Nations peacekeepers, local daily Yediot Ahronot reported Friday, December 1.
The paper said the finding was in an army report on the incident submitted to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Shaul Mofaz.
The report said that the IDF soldiers, on the border patrol, broke with normal procedures and drove their jeep off a designated route because they saw a vehicle on the Lebanese side of the border, which looked like a car used by U.N. peacekeepers.
The daily did not explain how the army gathered its information. And the army said Friday it would not comment on anything connected to the capture of the three soldiers.
The Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, captured the three soldiers on October 7, and nothing about their whereabouts has been heard since then.
Timur Goksel, the spokesman of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), told the daily that the report was incorrect. But he said parts of the UNIFIL uniforms and UN insignia, arm bands and licence plates were found in the two abandoned vehicles, a black jeep and a white Nissan that were used in the Hezbollah operation.
He said he believed the black jeep was used in the capture and the white vehicle was a back-up car.
He said the UNIFIL had issued a strongly-worded complaint to the Lebanese government and Hezbollah representatives in Beirut over the UN equipment found in the vehicles.
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