Times of Israel reports artificial rock containing camera, four batteries found in town near border; device said to date from before Israel’s withdrawal in 2001.
A device concealed in an artificial rock in the southern Lebanese town of Bani Hayyan. According to the Lebanese Army, the device is an Israeli surveillance camera. (screen capture: Lebanese Armed Forces Facebook page)
Soldiers from the Lebanese Armed Forces claimed Wednesday to have found a rock concealing an Israeli spying device in the south of the country.
The army said it found the device in the town of Bani Hayyan, around four kilometers from the border with Israel.
According to a report in al-Manar, a Hezbollah-affiliated website, the device included a camera and four batteries.
In a short video clip released by the Lebanese Army, a shiny surface appearing to be the lens of a camera can be seen through an opening in what appears to be an artificial rock made out of fiberglass.
https://www.facebook.com/LebaneseArmedForcesOfficial/videos/908309289253945/
According to al-Manar, the device was found in an area that “used to host an Israeli post during [Israel’s] occupation of Lebanon.”
Israel withdrew from the so-called South Lebanon Security Belt — a strip of land several kilometers wide along the Lebanese-Israeli border on Lebanon’s side — in a hastily organized operation in May 2000, after maintaining a presence there since the First Lebanon War in 1982.
If correct, the listening device would likely be too old to still be functioning.
Lebanese officials have claimed to find Israeli listening devices hidden in rocks in Lebanon before, including two devices reportedly uncovered on a mountain near Beirut in 2010.