U.N.: Disputed tree was in Israel
Top news: The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL,
has concluded that Israeli forces were cutting trees on the Israeli side of the border yesterday when they were engaged by Lebanese troops in a firefight that killed two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist, and a senior Israeli officer. Order has largely returned to the area and officers from both sides plan to meet on the border today.
In the hours following the incident, both sides had accused one another or violating the "Blue Line," the border demarcated by the United Nations when Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. The confusion
likely resulted from a security fence, which Israeli troops apparently crossed in order to prune the trees and improve their sight-lines into Lebanon. The fence does not precisely correspond in the Blue Line in all places.
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-By Joshua Keating | 
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JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images
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