U.N. Accuses Israel of Lebanon Incident : Troops Reportedly Pushed Into Norwegian Peacekeepers’ Zone

Israeli troops forcibly entered a U.N. position manned by Norwegian peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon on Monday, then withdrew several hours later without incident, a U.N. spokesman said.

But an Israeli military spokesman in Tel Aviv disputed this version of events. He denied that Israeli troops had occupied the U.N. post, near Marjayoun just inside Israel’s self-proclaimed security zone in southern Lebanon.

“Israeli troops did not take control of a U.N. position,” the Israeli spokesman said. “We have absolutely no interest in UNIFIL positions. We have enough enemies as it is. This report is very peculiar.”

Post Is Surrounded

Timur Goksel, a spokesman for UNIFIL, the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, said an Israeli armored column of about 40 men in eight vehicles approached and surrounded the observation post, manned by several soldiers from the Norwegian contingent of the U.N. force, shortly after 8 a.m.

“They entered despite protests by the Norwegians,” he said. “When they refused to leave, the Norwegians asked their battalion for help, and reinforcements were sent.”

He said the Israelis responded by sealing off all roads in the Marjayoun area and blocking all routes leading to the Norwegian post.

The confrontation lasted for nearly four hours but was finally defused after the U.N. deputy commander, Col. Michel Zeiser, flew to the scene to negotiate with the senior Israeli officer there, a brigadier general.

‘Everything Was Normal’

“The Israelis finally admitted it had all been a mistake,” Goksel, the U.N. spokesman, said. “By noon, everything was normal and everyone went home.”

He said that no shots were fired by either side.

Goksel described the incident as “very strange” because it was the first time that “an Israeli force has entered a U.N. position like this and then called it a mistake.”

That it was strange was about the only thing on which the U.N. and Israeli accounts of the incident agreed.

A military source in Tel Aviv, speaking on condition of anonymity and reading from a prepared statement, said the incident began shortly before 6 a.m. when two Israeli vehicles took up temporary positions on a hill about 200 yards south of the Norwegian post.

He said that a Norwegian officer ordered the Israelis to leave and that, when met with refusal, he blocked off the road with an armored vehicle.

The military source said the hill was not part of the U.N. peace force’s territory and that the two Israeli vehicles had taken up positions there for “operational purposes,” which he did not define. He added that the incident ended shortly before noon when the two vehicles “left the area after having completed their operations.”

In an unrelated incident, a Nepalese soldier attached to the U.N. force was slightly wounded when Lebanese militiamen from the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army militia raked a Shia Muslim village just north of the security zone with machine-gun fire Sunday night, U.N. officials said.

Zones Overlap

The Israeli security zone, which extends from four to 10 miles inside Lebanon along the length of the frontier, is policed by Israeli troops and South Lebanon Army militiamen. It overlaps the U.N. peacekeeping zone.

The U.N. force, which is made up of 5,700 soldiers from nine nations, was deployed in southern Lebanon after the 1978 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.