Five Sudanese Citizens Arrested While Trying to Cross From Lebanon Into Israel

The Israeli army identified five individuals who were trying to cross from Lebanon into Israel in the early hours of Sunday morning and stopped them as they were attempting to climb over the security fence, the IDF spokesperson unit said in a statement. The trespassers turned out to be citizens of Sudan.

The five were apparently job-seekers in Lebanon, and were later released in coordination with the United Nations, which monitors the peace process on the border. The Lebanese military said it detained the five Sudanese citizens on Sunday and was questioning them.

A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said they are looking into the case with the parties without elaborating.

About two weeks ago, the IDF said the border fence had been breached in three different points and condemned the incident as "of the most serious nature," although it specified that no one had entered Israeli territory.

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At the time, the Israeli security establishment interpreted the incident as a retaliation from Hezbollah after an IDF drone had targeted a car belonging to the militia on the Syrian side of the Syria-Lebanon border two days earlier.

After the incident in April, the IDF warned in a statement that it holds the Lebanese government responsible for any activity emanating from its territory.