Lebanese citizen allegedly 'kidnapped' by Israeli operatives
A Lebanese citizen was was taken from the seaside town of Batroun in northern Lebanon by armed men overnight Friday and into Saturday, a Lebanese security source told ABC News.
A unit of the Israeli Navy led a "special operation" into Batroun where "a senior operative of Hezbollah, who serves as an expert in his field, was apprehended," an Israeli military official told ABC News.
"In a special operation by Shayetet 13 in the Lebanese town of Batroun, a senior operative of Hezbollah, who serves as an expert in his field, was apprehended. The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated by Unit 504," the IDF said in a statement.
An investigation is underway to ascertain the facts of what the Lebanese security source referred to as a kidnapping.
Hezbollah has not directly commented, only issuing a statement denouncing an Arab media outlet's details on the incident as unfounded, in which it refers to the "Zionist aggression in the Batroun area." The statement does address whether the person taken was a Hezbollah member.
Video circulating online via Lebanese media and geolocated to a building on coast in Batroun, shows about 20 armed men taking a man away from a building near the beach in the middle of the night.
Batroun is north of Beirut on Lebanon's coast, far away from the majority of the fighting and even airstrikes. Due to the naval nature of the raid, UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force in Lebanon which keeps a naval presence under German responsibility, officially denied involvement in the incident.
"UNIFIL has not been involved in facilitating any kidnapping or other violation of Lebanese sovereignty. Disinformation and false rumours are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk," a UNIFIL deputy spokesperson Kandice Ardiel told ABC News.
-ABC News' Ghazi Balkiz and Anna Burd