דיווחים על פיצוץ מצבור נשק של חיזבאללה בדרום לבנון

NOW's South Lebanon correspondent reported that underground explosions were heard Tuesday morning starting at 8:00 a.m. between the villages of Khirbet As-Silm, Bir As-Salasil and As-Sultaniyeh. A second source told NOW that the explosions were the result of an underground Hezbollah arms storage facility blowing up.

The facility allegedly contained artillery, rocket-propelled grenades as well as machineguns used by Hezbollah fighters in the 2006 July War to face Israeli advances toward the villages of Ghandourieh and Froon in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah denied the reports, saying that the explosions heard were of cluster bombs that were dropped by Israel during the July War and were collected by residents of the area.

Hezbollah members surrounded the area to keep civilians out of the danger zone, while the Internal Security Forces and the Lebanese Armed Forces deployed to investigate the cause of the explosions.

No information has yet been confirmed.

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Israel accused Lebanon of violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 on Tuesday after a Hizbullah arms cache hidden inside a southern Lebanese town accidentally exploded.

The blast occurred inside the village of Hirbet Selm, some 20 kilometers north of the Israeli-Lebanese border, south of the Litani River and within the area which falls under the mandate of the UNIFIL multi-national force.

According to Israeli defense officials, the cache was hidden in a storehouse inside the village and contained dozens of 122-millimeter Katyusha rockets as well as high-powered machine guns. Some of the rockets reportedly flew into the sky.

Contrary to Lebanese media reports which claimed that the cache was hidden in the village before the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the Israeli defense officials said that the weaponry was recently placed inside the storehouse.

"This is a major violation of resolution 1701," one official said. "The weaponry was stored inside a village and is proof of our longstanding claim that Hizbullah uses civilian infrastructure to hide its weaponry."

According to Lebanese media reports, the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL sealed off the area surrounding the storehouse. The two reportedly announced plans to launch an investigation into the incident.

Last week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the fragile relationship between Israel and Lebanon was threatened by allegations of Israeli spy cells operating in Lebanon, by Israeli concerns that Lebanese "militias" were operating outside of state control and that Hizbullah had been deployed to southern Lebanon.

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