BEIRUT: Israel on Monday handed over to UN peacekeepers a Lebanese shepherd whom it detained a day earlier near a border enclave occupied by the Jewish state but claimed by Beirut, an official said.
"Israel handed over 37-year-old shepherd Imad Hassan Atwi to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) which in turn handed him over to the Lebanese army," the security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Atwi, who was hospitalized for serious injuries, was handed over at the Naqura border crossing, the army said in a statement on Monday.
The shepherd disappeared on Sunday in an area where there is no barbed wire separating the Lebanese town of Shebaa from the Shebaa Farms, a disputed sliver of land on Lebanon’s southeastern border.
UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh declined to specify whether the Israeli troops had carried out an incursion into Lebanese territory, saying an investigation was underway.
The Shebaa Farms, a mountainous area rich in water resources measuring 25 square kilometers (10 square miles), is located at the junction of southeast Lebanon, southwest Syria and northern Israel.
The area has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war and caught in a tug-of-war over ownership ever since.
Lebanon lays claim to the farms with Syria’s backing, but Israel argues the territory is Syrian. The United Nations has requested Lebanon provide sufficient proof of ownership.
Israel, which withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation, has detained Lebanese shepherds in the area before but has consistently handed them back after holding them for questioning.
