Israel said to detonate spying device in south Lebanon

Israel remotely detonated a spying device planted in southern Lebanon, injuring at least two people in the explosion, Lebanese media reported Tuesday.

A listening device was discovered by construction workers near the town of Marjayoun, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from Israel’s northern border, according to the Al Mayadeen news outlet.

State media said the small blast was from a local criminal matter, but Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV and most other media outlets said the explosion was from an Israeli listening device that detonated as a bulldozer and construction crew fixing a nearby road approached.

بالصور: تفجير جهاز تجسس اسرائيلي في مرجعيون…https://t.co/0YjHfSAegz pic.twitter.com/CfWyUw4TQo

— kataeb.org (@kataeb_Ar) December 1, 2015

Lebanese Armed Forces were called to the scene and opened an investigation into the incident.

An Israeli military spokesperson said in response the Israel Defense Forces “does not respond to foreign reports of this kind.”

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The incident comes weeks after UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeeping force along the Israel-Lebanese border, handed over one of its local employees to Beirut security services after he was accused of spying for Israel.

Lebanese officials have claimed to find Israeli listening devices in Lebanon before, including one earlier this year, and two in 2010 that were found hidden in rocks.

In October, Lebanese soldiers claimed to have found a rock concealing an Israeli spying device in the town of Bani Hayyan, around 4 kilometers (2 miles) from the border with Israel.

Local media at the time reported the device was found in an area that “used to host an Israeli post during [Israel’s] occupation of Lebanon.”

Israel withdrew from the so-called South Lebanon Security Belt — a strip of land several kilometers wide along the Lebanese-Israeli border on Lebanon’s side — in a hastily organized operation in May 2000, after maintaining a presence there since the First Lebanon War in 1982.

If correct, the recently discovered listening devices would likely be too old to still be functioning.

In 2014, Hezbollah claimed an Israeli army drone blew up a spying device after it was uncovered near Tyre. One person was killed in that incident, according to Lebanese reports.