Lebanon charges 3 for rocket fire against Israel
Authorities indict two Lebanese citizens, one Palestinian for August attack which led to IDF airstrike against PFLP target
A prosecutor in Lebanon on Monday charged three people – two Lebanese and a Palestinian – with firing rockets from the south of the country into Israel last month, judicial sources said.
"Military tribunal prosecutor Saqr Saqr charged two Lebanese, Yussef al-Fleiti and Mohamed Abdul Moula al-Atrash, with the crime of firing rockets at the occupied territories," the source told AFP, referring to Israel.
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The source said a third person, a Palestinian who remains at large, was also charged with involvement in the August 22 attack.
On Saturday, the Lebanese army announced it had captured two people who had confessed to having transported rockets from the eastern Bekaa to Tyre in southern Lebanon.
The salvo of four rockets, which caused damage but no casualties, was claimed by the Abdullah Azzam Brigades – an al-Qaeda-linked Palestinian militant group behind similar rocket fire on Israel in 2009 and 2011.
But Israeli air strikes on August 23 targeted a position of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a small Palestinian group allied with the Syrian regime that had denied involvement in the rocket fire.
IDF Spokesman Brigadier General Yoav (Poly) Mordechai said that according to IDF estimates, international jihadists are responsible for the rocket fire at Israel.
"The first identification (of the rockets) was a launch from the village of Kalila south of Tyre, we assume representatives of the international Jihad movement," he said in a statement.
Following the IDF's counterattack in Lebanon, Mordechai added: "The IDF views the Lebanese government as responsible for the rocket fire. The attack is a clear message by the IDF and Israel to Lebanon's decision makers."
Military sources added that the IDF struck in the area of the village of Naameh between Tyre and Sidon, about seven km south of Beirut. The target was a range of tunnels, possibly used as rocket launch pads.
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