Israel hopes that the explosion of a Lebanese weapons cache will serve as a “smoke gun” for Hizbullah’s action and its unimpeded activities in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL inspectors ignored intelligence information that they obtained regarding a cache of Katyusha rockets which exploded in a Lebanese village last Tuesday, a political source in Jerusalem told Haaretz. A subsequent infiltration of 12 Lebanese citizens into Israel occurred during the weekend.

A deliberation regarding extending UNIFIL’s mandate in Lebanon is expected to take place at the end of August by the U.N. Security Council. Israel is interested to use the weekend incidents to emphasize the need to enhance UNIFIL’s activities in southern Lebanon. Although Israel doesn’t anticipate changing UNIFIL policy, it hopes that the procedure for opening fire will be modified. Israeli officials stated that UNIFIL troops encounter armed Hizbullah terrorists on a weekly basis. However, the incidents aren’t reported.