Navy opens fire on buoys that strayed from Lebanese waters

Israeli Navy sailors opened fire at buoys that had floated into Israeli territorial waters from the Lebanese coast, the army says.

There was no immediate danger presented by the buoys. The sailors conducted the “controlled gunfire” in order to sink the devices, an army spokesperson says. This was to remove any potential threat posed by them, if they, for instance, had been rigged with explosives.

Over the past few weeks, Israeli and Lebanese officials have been in a war of words over an area of the Mediterranean Sea that is believed to sit above a natural gas deposit, known as Block 9, which both countries claim as their own.

— Judah Ari Gross