both are spoiling for another fight. Both sides have been readying for another engagement.

Anyone wanna take bets?

...hit and killed at a fixed OP, 300 m inside Israeli territory. Given local terrain, I'd expect the firing position to be a bit back of the border on the Lebanese side. I don't think this is quite so simple as Israel spoiling for a fight. I would love to know how early in the exchange the LCOL got hit - if that was the initiation, someone wants tensions high.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

One site said the IDF notified UNIFIL they would be doing some work there. So far, we've heard from Israel and Lebanon but UNIFIL hasn't said anything. Hardly surprising - they've always been useless as TOB.
They were supposed to prevent Hezbollah arms buildups in the border area but have obviously failed. Incompetence or something darker - take your pick.

The (Lebanon) Daily Star, August 4

The UN Security Council has expressed “deep concern” and urged all parties to show “the utmost restraint” in an emergency session held Tuesday to discuss the clashes between Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israeli army.

Council members also called on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to complete its investigation into the causes behind the incident which left two Lebanese soldiers, a journalist, and an Israeli officer, dead.

All parties should “observe the cessation of hostilities and prevent any further escalation,” Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said in a joint statement issued on behalf of the council. Lebanon is currently serving as a temporary member on the 15-nation body.

The call for calm has been mirrored by the international community which has come out in force to denounce any further escalation.

In a separate statement, US State Department spokesman, Philip Crowley, urged Israel and Lebanon to exercise “maximum restraint to avoid an escalation and maintain the ceasefire that is now in place.”

“The US is extremely concerned about the violence,” he told Reuters.

Right on cue wayne madsen sez that the undersecretary of proxy wars and falseflags, erm Low Intensity Conflicts, was in Beirut, and the juked report about that Hariri guy (talk about yr bandwagons for intervention-justifying blue ribbon fun) is almost ready. Some kind of weird missile attack in Eilat and an explosion on an Arab tanker. Netanyahu and the SOCOM bandits are getting ready to ride high for August.

But first they need to send a lieutenant colonel to clear brush at the border. Strategery!! I'd like to hear Pat Lang on it - where is http://turcopolier.typepad.com/ ? Here's Mr Cole http://www.juancole.com/2010/08/8024.html

EDIT: lol Archduke Ferdinand's Zero hedges! http://www.zerohedge.com/article/trimming-archduke-ferdinands-hedges-will-landscaping-be-cause-another-israel-war
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Hongpong.com

Robert Fisk at The Independent reports from Lebanon the "skirmish" and the "battle-plan" of events.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-israellebanon-tensions-flare-after-skirmish-leaves-four-dead-2042501.html

Always in safe hands when facts are about, Robert Fisk is worth the small wait to find the real scoop on almost everything in that part of the world.

PressTV, August 4

Hezbollah has advised Tel Aviv to think twice before committing another act of aggression against Lebanon, saying the resistance movement is capable of striking the heart of Israel.

One day after deadly clashes between Israeli and Lebanese troops, Hezbollah's deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Wednesday that the Shia group is ready to deliver a harsh response to Israel if Tel Aviv attempts to wage another war on the country.

"Israel must understand that any aggression on Lebanon, no matter how small, gives us the complete right to retaliate when and how we find appropriate and in line with Lebanon's political interests," Sheikh Naim Qassem told AFP in an exclusive interview.

"When Israel threatens to destroy Lebanon, it knows Hezbollah is capable of making Israel suffer properly. Israel's territory will be completely exposed and they will have to bear responsibility for that aggression and pay the price," he added.

UNIFIL has said the IDF never crossed the border. Looks more like Hezbollah is looking for a fight.

Robert Fisk: UN: Israel was on its own side before border clash

Thursday, 5 August 2010
The Independent

So was the tree inside Israel? The UN implies that the shrubbery that ultimately cost the lives of five men on Tuesday was on the Israeli side of the "Blue Line".

"Unifil established... that the trees being cut by the Israeli army are located south of the Blue Line on the Israeli side," said a Unifil military spokesman.

The tree was certainly north of Israel's own "technical fence". But the Lebanese have their doubts about some parts of the "Blue Line" – which is why Israel's attempt to cut down what appears to be a spruce tree started a gun battle on Tuesday on Lebanon's southern border which killed three Lebanese soldiers, a 55-year-old Lebanese journalist and an Israeli lieutenant-colonel. Along with the fact that Israel had apparently not co-ordinated its gardening expedition with the Lebanese via the UN.

They were at it again yesterday, tearing down more undergrowth on the Lebanese side of the fence – though south of the "Blue Line" – without any coordination with the Lebanese. The UN commander in southern Lebanon was holding tripartite talks with both sides last night in an effort to put an end to this tragic nonsense. The clearance of the shrubbery is intended to enlarge the horizon for Israeli border security cameras – though it hardly seems worth the lives of five men.

The real problem is twofold. The "Blue Line" was inadvisedly drawn on the orders of an ambitious UN civil servant who would one day like to be UN Secretary General. In his haste to draw an "accurate" border, for example, he put the entire area of Shebaa farms – which was Lebanese during the post-First World War French mandate – south and east of the line, effectively putting it under Israeli occupation (which had in military terms been the case since the 1967 Middle East war).

But political errors of this kind led to other mistakes and sapped the belief of Lebanese authorities in the UN's maps.

Add to this the entire regional hostility – Hamas versus Israel, Israel's threats against Syria and Iran and Syria's and Iran's threats against Israel, not to mention the wreckage of George Bush's adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq – and you can see how a tree can start a war.

At least three of the victims of Tuesday's battle – which the Shia Muslim Hizbollah eagerly reported as a Lebanese victory without actually participating in it – were buried yesterday.

At least one of the soldiers was a Christian and so was Assaf Abu Rahal, the journalist and father of three children, Nisrine, Geryes and Mazen.

The UN announced it was still investigating what went wrong. Many UN troops mount foot and vehicle patrols along the frontier road where the shooting took place. They often spend their time trying to prevent journalists taking photographs of the great vista of Israeli countryside in northern Galilee. They can stop cameras shooting pictures, it seems. But not guns shooting bullets.