Lebanon’s army said late on Sunday that an Israel border patrol had seized a Lebanese woman in the Shebaa area and taken her across the frontier.

 “On April 28 at 8.30pm an Israeli enemy patrol carried out the abduction of Nohad Dali from the town of Shebaa and took her into occupied Palestinian territory,” said a Lebanese army command statement carried on Lebanon’s state news agency NNA.

 Israel’s army said 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. “An Israeli enemy patrol carried out the abduction of Nohad Dali,” a Lebanese army statement said. —Agencies </s> 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.

“An Israeli enemy patrol carried out the abduction of Nohad Dali,” a Lebanese army statement said.

The Israeli military said two shepherds had crossed the U.N.-demarcated border with Lebanon and that one of them was taken into custody by its troops.

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 al-Assad as part of an Iran-backed alliance.

Lebanon raised Dali’s case with the U.N. peacekeepers, the Lebanese army statement said. Reuters </s> 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.

"An Israeli enemy patrol carried out the abduction of Nohad Dali," a Lebanese army statement said.The Israeli military said two shepherds had crossed the UN-demarcated border with Lebanon and that one of them was taken into custody by its troops."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.

var cont = `Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>



`; document.getElementById("linkPremium").innerHTML = cont; (function (v, i){ }); </s> The Israeli army on Sunday released a Lebanese woman its troops had abducted on Saturday.

“The Israeli occupation army this morning freed Lebanese citizen Nouhad Dilli and she was handed over to Lebanese Army intelligence agents via UNIFIL, in the Burkat al-Naqqar area west of the town of Shebaa,” the National News Agency reported.

The woman had been kidnapped Saturday from the al-Shahel area east of the border town of Shebaa.

“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. </s> BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's army said late on Saturday that an Israel border patrol had seized a Lebanese woman in the Shebaa area and taken her across the frontier.

"On April 28 at 8.30pm an Israeli enemy patrol carried out the abduction of Nohad Dali from the town of Shebaa and took her into occupied Palestinian territory," said a Lebanese army command statement carried on Lebanon's state news agency NNA.

The Shebaa region includes a small disputed area that Israel regards as part of the Golan Heights, which it has occupied since capturing it from Syria in 1967, but which Lebanon says is part of its territory.

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 al-Assad as part of an Iran-backed alliance.

Lebanon has raised the seizure of Dali with the U.N. peacekeepers, the army statement said.

An Israeli army spokesman said: "I'm aware of this report and have nothing for you on it at this time." </s> The Israeli teenagers were on a group hike in the Tzafit Valley near the southern Dead Sea when severe storms hit the area, causing flash floods. The youths were students at the Bnei Zion pre-military academy in central Israel.

Eight girls and one boy were among the dead, according to Magen David Adom of the Israeli emergency response service. Another girl is missing.

More than a dozen other members of the group were rescued as the Israeli military and emergency responders launched massive efforts to find them in southern Israel.

"I am sending all my strength to the security and rescue forces that are currently working to save lives and locate those missing in the severe disaster that occurred today in the Tzafit Valley," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Twitter.

Former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni , who was set to speak to the students Sunday at the academy, said, "An entire nation is crying today. An unimaginable and unbearable disaster. Today, I hug the families and the other heartbroken cadets." Israeli rescue services search for the teens Thursday after flash floods swept through the area. In the West Bank, Palestinian police and emergency services launched rescue efforts. Fifteen people were rescued in the village of Ubeidiya east of Bethlehem, Palestinian police spokesman Loai Zreqat said. Two other teenagers died in separate flash flooding incidents Wednesday when storms pounded the area, even bringing hail. A Bedouin teenager in southern Israel was swept into a stream in the Negev desert. He was pronounced dead after he was found, according to emergency responders. In the southern West Bank, a young Palestinian girl died when she was swept away by flooding near Hebron, police said. The weather caused accidents, road closures and traffic jams across the region, with low-lying roads submerged under a few feet of water. An Israeli military helicopter takes part in the search mission Thursday in southern Israel. The flash floods came with such force that they broke through Israel's separation barrier -- a 10-foot wall of solid concrete -- in two places. Pictures from Anata, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, showed what appeared to be about 10 concrete slabs that had been washed away. The water broke through in the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem as well. Security fence in the shuafat area collapsed as a result of flash floods in the Jerusalem area. Border police police are at the scene. pic.twitter.com/BCG4sBDZVk — Micky Rosenfeld (@MickyRosenfeld) April 26, 2018 Such severe storms in late April is surprising, with the region usually prepping for the beginning of an arid summer. Powerful thunderstorms are not unheard of at this time, but they haven't occurred in a number of years. Israeli soldiers and emergency services cover their faces Thursday from the dust from a helicopter. Raging waters filled streets and flooded stores and homes in videos and photos posted on social media, while videos from the desert showed the parched landscape suddenly inundated with torrential waters. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mr Baxter's family last heard from him on 1 December

A Canadian tourist held in Syrian detention since 2018 has been released.

Kristian Lee Baxter arrived in the country on 26 November and stopped contacting his family about a week later.

His mother, Andrea Leclair, previously described her son as a "world traveller" and "adventurer".

"I thought I would be there forever," Mr Baxter said during an emotional appearance at a news conference in Beirut on Friday.

"I didn't know if anyone knew if I was alive," he added.

Lebanon's security chief Abbas Ibrahim, who appeared alongside him, said the Canadian was detained for "reasons related to breaking Syrian law".

Mr Ibrahim was also involved in securing the release of a US traveller, Sam Goodwin, from Syria last month.

Canada has advised citizens against travelling to Syria since civil war broke out in 2011.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Canada's ambassador to Lebanon, Emmanuelle Lamoureux, was also in attendance

"Syria is not safe for personal travel," the advisory on their website says. "Attempting any form of travel in this very hazardous security environment would place you at grave risk."

Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters in Calgary on Friday that she is "personally relieved by this outcome and I'm sure Mr Baxter's family and loved ones are as well".

She added that despite the positive outcome in this case that it "should remind us all to exercise a high degree of caution when traveling to dangerous parts of the world".

"I'm ecstatic that Kristian is on his way home," said Ms Leclair in a statement, and thanked Canadian officials and the Lebanese government for their assistance in the case.

Mr Baxter, who was 44 when he went missing, was supposed to return home on 13 December.

Ms Leclair told CTV News in January that her son had been staying at a village near the Lebanese border after arriving there from Beirut. He reportedly disappeared while attempting to locate a driver who had gone back to Lebanon to retrieve his luggage, which arrived there by plane after him.

The driver was reportedly detained on the border when a metal detector was found in her son's bag, Ms Leclair said.

The circumstances of Mr Baxter's detention and release have not been revealed by officials. </s> On Wednesday, US presidential envoy to the US-led anti-Daesh coalition Brett McGurk blasted a deal between forces allied to Damascus and Daesh militants involving the busing of the terrorists and their families from western Qalamoun, along the border with Lebanon, to the province of Deir ez Zor in eastern Syria in exchange for information about Lebanese soldiers kidnapped by the terrorists in 2014.

"Irreconcilable #ISIS terrorists should be killed on the battlefield, not bused across #Syria to the Iraqi border without #Iraq's consent," McGurk wrote on his Twitter page. "Our @coalition will help ensure that these terrorists can never enter #Iraq or escape from what remains of their dwindling 'caliphate,'" he added.

Earlier this week, 308 militants and 331 members of their families began their journey by bus from the Syria-Lebanon border to the jihadist-controlled town of Abu Kamal in Deir ez Zor. In addition to clearing the border area, the deal, reached over the weekend, required Daesh to provide information about the kidnapped Lebanese troops, as well as information about missing Hezbollah fighters. The Lebanese side has received the bodies of eight soldiers; their identities are presently being confirmed by DNA analysis.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese army and the Syrian army launched an operation to clear the border area between Syria and Lebanon of terrorists earlier this month, clearing dozens of square kilometers and clinching the jihadists in several pockets. The deal made over the weekend provided for the withdrawal of the remaining terrorists and their families from the border area to eastern Syria.

"Our American partners understand that they have run out of time to seize the initiative in Syria, hence the need to attach themselves to some small issue and break the positive trends regarding the situation in this country," Yevstafeev said.

"[They're hoping to] latch on to any event, whoever it might involve, to regain the initiative, at least formally," the observer added.

"They've said that they reserve the right to bomb the column passing through territory controlled by Bashar Assad's troops in order to provoke, for instance, a reaction by the Russian air defenses in the country. Therefore, this is an attempt at a petty and cheap provocation. And this reflects the strategic situation: the Americans have lost in Syria," Yevstafeev stressed.

"Therefore, from the strategic, and the humanitarian points of view, the actions of Bashar Assad's allies are absolutely justified," Evstafiev concluded. </s> Sign up for one of our email newsletters.

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet it said had breached its airspace on Tuesday while advancing Syrian government forces retaking territory from rebels reached the Golan Heights frontier for the first time in seven years.

The Israeli military said it monitored the advance of the Syrian Sukhoi fighter jet and shot it down with a pair of Patriot missiles after it penetrated Israeli airspace by about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles).

Syria’s military, however, said one of its jets was targeted by Israel over Syrian territory as it flew sorties against Islamic State militants.

Syrian forces have been battling rebels and IS militants at the frontier with Israel for weeks in a campaign to restore President Bashar Assad’s rule over southwestern Syria.

On Tuesday, government forces reached the border fence where a U.N. peacekeeping force is deployed at the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It was the first time Syrian government had managed to retake the area since 2011, when an uprising swept through Syria against Assad.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. The U.N. deployed peacekeepers between the two sides in 1974.

Israel’s military has been on “elevated alert” along the frontier because of activity on the Syrian side of the fence, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus. Israel has warned Syria through various channels not to violate the 1974 agreement that established the demilitarized zone, he added.

Minutes before the reported downing of the jet, Syria’s state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV was broadcasting footage from the fence demarcating the U.N. buffer zone between Syrian and Israeli forces in the Golan Heights. A U.N. observer post could be seen just on the other side of the fence.

The camera showed an Israeli post 400 meters (440 yards) away.

Israel’s military said the Syrian jet took off from the T4 air base, which Israel is believed to have attacked earlier this year.

The plane flew toward Israel at “relatively high speed” before breaching the country’s airspace, said Conricus. He said it was unknown if the plane deliberately crossed into Israel.

The plane crashed in the southern part of the Syrian Golan Heights, he said. Israel had no reports on the condition of the pilot.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said one pilot was killed and that the condition of the other was unknown.

Syrian rebels surrendered their last pockets in the southwestern Quneitra and Daraa provinces last week, leading thousands of opposition fighters, their families and other civilians to evacuate to the rebel-held province of Idlib in northern Syria.

According to the Observatory, some 9,500 people have been bused from southwest Syria to Idlib. It is unlikely they will be able to return to their homes in the near-term. The U.N. has condemned such arrangements as forced displacement, a war crime.

Over the weekend, rescuers from the Syrian Civil Defense — also known as White Helmets — and their family members were evacuated through Israel to Jordan, after they were promised asylum in Canada and European nations.

The White Helmets have been a target of the Syrian government, which accuses them of staging poison gas attacks and participating in terrorism, claims which have not been proven.
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.