By JPOST.COM STAFF
Reports from Lebanon at the weekend said that the Lebanese Army had arrested a resident of the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, near Sidon, for firing a Katyusha rocket into Israel last week.
The man was named as Fadi Ibrahim, and was said to be a member of the Fatah al-Islam group, which is linked to al-Qaida.
The rocket fired last Tuesday evening struck the Upper Galilee, causing a deafening explosion and setting a field on fire, but failing to cause casualties or significant damage. The rocket slammed into a field not far from Kiryat Shmona, 3 km. from Lebanon. The IDF immediately shelled the Lebanese territory from which the projectile was launched.
The next day, Lebanese forces found and dismantled four other rockets aimed at Israel and ready to fire. The Lebanese daily A-Safir reported that all were the work of Ibrahim and his followers.
Ibrahim was also alleged to have been responsible for a series of previous attacks on Israeli and UNIFIL targets.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Interior Minister Ziad Baroud said during a visit to southern Lebanon on Sunday that Israeli spying devices on foreign soil are a clear violation of international resolutions.
Baroud, a rising Maronite politician who was appointed interior minister in 2008 as a representative of Lebanese President Michel Suleiman's bloc, expressed his "determination to continue to uncover espionage networks."
The Lebanese interior minister's remarks came a day after Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon announced that Israel was gathering intelligence within Lebanon and would continue to do so until Hizbullah disarmed.
"During a conflict with an enemy, one must gather intelligence," he said, adding that the conflict would end once peace with Lebanon was achieved.
Last month, Hizbullah had claimed a blast near Lebanon's border with Israel had been caused by the detonation of an Israeli "spying device" which had been exposed by the Lebanese army.
Following the incident, Lebanon filed a complaint against Israel to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The Lebanese government would not stand for such flagrant violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, said Baroud, "especially when a reprehensible enemy declares its persistence to plant espionage networks" in the country.
Baroud stressed that Israel's actions affected not only Hizbullah and the Shi'ite-dominated southern part of the country, but also Lebanon's sovereignty and its populace, referring to the "days of occupation" the region had undergone during the IDF's 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee.
Concerning Hizbullah's paramilitary activity in Lebanon, cited by Ya'alon as grounds for Israeli espionage, Baroud declared that the people of Lebanon all had "a national responsibility to protect" their homeland.
Hizbullah's "resistance," he said, continually paid a heavy price for its defense of the country.
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