RNA - On Monday, a reporter for Russia’s RT Arabic strolled uninterrupted around the deserted Avivim base on the Lebanese border, less than 24 hours after Hezbollah’s operation there.
In a video uploaded to the TV network’s Facebook account, RT Arabic correspondent Dalia Nammari wanders with her camera crew through the abandoned base.
She passes by military vehicles and enters dormitories, where she finds the Israeli soldiers’ personal belongings as well as rifle magazines.
“Everything is empty, there is no soldier here and there is nothing,” she stated.
“This place has been abandoned because it is close to the Lebanese border. This means that Israel is still exercising caution as it is fearful of another such attack by Hezbollah or any other Lebanese group. That is why we do not see any soldier at this base,” the reporter said, adding that “this is the guardroom, which has been abandoned the way it was, with the door left open".
“The weapons have also been left here. You can see magazines and munitions around here,” she noted.
According to Fars News Agancy, the report prompted the Israeli Army to claim that the outpost had been evacuated a few days before the Hezbollah attack.
“This was a post on the border line that was classified last week as a threatened position,” the Israeli army spokesperson’s unit said in a statement, adding, “It was therefore evacuated during the week.”
There was “no concern of information leakage” as contents of the outpost had been removed”, the spokesperson claimed, stating that the Israeli forces had returned to base in accordance with a new security assessment.
On Sunday, Hezbollah fired two anti-tank guided missiles at a moving Israeli armored vehicle at the Avivim base north of the occupied lands, killing and wounding its occupants.
The attack came in response to an Israeli air raid last week that killed two resistance fighters in Syria as well as an Israeli drone attack on Southern Beirut.
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