LEBANON: More explosions rattle southern Lebanon amid accusations of Israeli spying

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It seems the residents of Lebanon’s shellshocked, war-torn south cannot rest easy.

Less than a week after a still-unexplained explosion at the house of a Hezbollah member in Teir Felsay, residents of Houla near the Israeli border were shaken by a series of blasts Saturday night and this morning. A military official told AFP news agency today that the explosions were caused by the the detonation of three Israeli spy devices attached to the militant Islamist group Hezbollah’s telecommunications network. The Israelis allegedly blew up the first two, fearing discovery, and the Lebanese army found the third and destroyed it.

Israel dismissed the allegations in a statement, saying they ‘did not warrant a serious response,’ but did not deny them outright. The statement went on to accuse Hezbollah of attempting to divert attention from the group’s own violations of U.N. Resolution 1701, presumably referring to the explosion earlier this week.

On Monday, an explosion in the garage of Hezbollah member Abdel Nasser Issa wounded Issa and set off a flurry of contradicting accusations, with Israel saying the site was a Hezbollah weapons cache and Hezbollah blaming the blast on an old Israeli ordnance. Both issued supposed video evidence to back up their claims. The incident is under investigation.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut