Israel’s army said on Sunday that it had briefly held a Lebanese woman who crossed the border and then repatriated her, a detention Beirut denounced as an abduction. The Lebanese army said that the woman, Nohad Dali, was taken on Saturday evening from Shebaa, a small disputed area that Israel regards as part of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967, but which Beirut says is Lebanese territory. “After coordination with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the citizen Nouhad Dilli was at 10:10 am handed over to the Intelligence Directorate in the outskirts of the town of Shebaa through U.N. forces,” a Lebanese Army statement said. "She was returned today," a military spokesman said.There was no immediate Lebanese confirmation of Dali's repatriation.A U.N. peacekeeping force is based on the Lebanon-Israel border. The last outright conflict there was a short war in 2006 between Israel and Lebanon's heavily armed, Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have heightened over the group's role in the Syrian civil war, where it has gained more experience and an increased arsenal fighting alongside President Bashar Assad as part of an Iran-backed alliance.Lebanon raised Dali's case with the UN peacekeepers, the Lebanese army statement said.
The Israel Defense Forces detain one of two Lebanese shepherds who they say crossed the United Nations-patrolled border between the two nations. Lebanon calls the detention an "abduction". The IDF says the female shepherd, detained in the disputed Shebaa region, was quickly repatriated.