Hizbullah erects billboard of captured "Israelis" at border: "Do you dare come back?"

Source: AFP & Daily Star, 27-4-2007
AITA AL-SHAAB: Hizbullah erected a billboard with photographs of two captured "Israeli" soldiers along the border with the Jewish (Zionist) state on Thursday, very close to where the two were seized on July 12. A crowd of supporters chanted slogans as the 3-meter-by-5-meter poster was put up by unarmed Hizbullah members in the Khelwet Warde region, near the village of Aita al-Shaab.
The image was a montage of old pictures previously circulated in "Israel" of the two troops in civilian clothes before their capture, prior to the recent summer 2006 war with "Israel".
Mounted on a huge black placard draped in a Hizbullah flag, the billboard showed Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in profile facing each other.
Between them a tagline in English and Arabic - "For the sake of our detainees" - referred to Hizbullah`s demands to have Goldwasser and Regev swapped for prisoners held by "Israel", namely Samir Kantar, Nassim Nisr and Yehia Skaff.
Chants in support of Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah rang out from a crowd of local villagers who gathered to watch the billboard being put up. "We will sacrifice ourselves for you, Nasrallah," the supporters chanted.
A patrol from the Ghanaian contingent operating as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) monitored the event, as did the Lebanese Army.
On the other side of the border "Israeli" troops intensified their own patrols.
Hizbullah has erected other billboards depicting the party`s battles with the "Israeli" Army during the summer 2006 war at various sites all along the border with "Israel".
In the village of Beit Lif where Hizbullah said to have shot down an "Israeli" helicopter during the war, a billboard depicting the demolished aircraft in addition to the legend "Do you dare to come back?" was erected. Another billboard threatened: "If you return, we will return."
Separately, an "Israeli" patrol crossed into Southern Lebanon on Thursday but was confronted by UN peacekeepers, the Lebanese Army said.
"Today, a 10-member `Israeli` enemy patrol crossed the electric fence in the Saddani Hills, between the towns of Kfar Shouba and Shibaa," a statement said, adding that the troops had "entered Lebanese territory between 50 meters and 100 meters."
"Army troops in the area went immediately on alert, and a unit from the UN Interim Force intervened and forced the enemy patrol to withdraw toward the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms," the report said.
"A UNIFIL committee started to probe and document the extent of this violation," said the statement, adding that "a Lebanese Army force took up position in the area" where the "Israelis" had entered Lebanon.
Asked about the incident, a UNIFIL officer told AFP that "UNIFIL sent technical ex-perts to ascertain the facts" and had "sent reinforcements to that area to prevent any escalation."