Around 20 ultra-Orthodox Jews from the Breslov Hasidic sect infiltrated into southern Lebanon from Israel between Saturday and Sunday, in order to visit a site where they claim an ancient rabbi is buried.
Israeli forces stopped them and returned them to Israel, according to the Ynet news website.
The ultra-Orthodox Jews claim that Rabbi Ashi, a fourth century Jewish scholar, is buried at the site, which sits on a Lebanese mountain very near the border with Israel.
Local Lebanese people dispute this and claim that a 16th century Shia Muslim cleric named Sheikh Abbad is buried there.
This is not the first time that ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, Jews have infiltrated into the site.
Israeli authorities detained eight of the infiltrators, according to Ynet.
“During the night, the Israel Police received a complaint from IDF [Israeli army] officials regarding a group of 20 Israeli citizens who entered the territory of the State of Lebanon after crossing the border in the northern region,” a statement from Israeli police said.
The statement added that the detained suspects had been transferred to a police station in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shimona for questioning, adding that the maximum penalty for illegal infiltration into Lebanon is four years imprisonment.
After escalating a low-level conflict with Hezbollah into a full-scale war last September, Israel has continued to occupy parts of southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire in place since November.
Israel has said it will pull out all its forces from Lebanon by February 18 but still launches strikes and attacks in the country.
On Saturday, it claimed to have killed Abbas Ahmed Mahmoud, a leader of Hezbollah’s aerial unit, in a strike on south Lebanon.
During and just before the war against Lebanon, Israeli media and settler groups claimed that southern Lebanon was really “northern Israel”, publishing maps of proposed settlements and claiming that there were historic Jewish sites and tombs in the country.
