Israel opens border to Lebanese farm workers

Israel is allowing agricultural workers from Lebanon, a neighboring country with which it is at war, to enter its territory to pick olives, the IDF said in a statement on Monday.

the army said.

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They were able to cross the Blue Line, a border drawn by the UN after the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000,

to harvest olives, the statement continued with a video. And this on several occasions since October 10, told AFP an army spokeswoman. The Hebrew state and Lebanon remain technically in a state of war. The United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) has been deployed in southern Lebanon to act as a buffer between the two countries.

In early August, tensions between the two countries escalated, during which the Israeli army and Hezbollah, an armed movement sponsored by Iran, exchanged fire on both sides of the border. In 2006, the last major confrontation between Israel and Shiite Hezbollah left more than 1,200 dead on the Lebanese side, mostly civilians, and 160 on the Israeli side, mostly military. Since October 2019, Lebanon has been in the grip of an unprecedented economic, social and financial crisis, aggravated by a political impasse.

The Lebanese are subject to draconian banking restrictions that prevent them from having free access to their money, while the local currency has lost more than 90% of its value against the dollar on the black market.

Almost 80% of the population now lives in poverty amid soaring inflation and severe shortages of medicine, fuel and electricity.

A year ago, Israel and Lebanon began

talks

under the auspices of the UN and the United States, on the demarcation of their maritime borders.

But these talks have stalled since May, due to differences over the surface of a disputed area between the two countries.