Israeli soldiers fired two mortar rounds into southern Lebanon Thursday, but there were no reports of casualties, AFP said, quoting police sources.
The mortars were fired from an Israeli position in Tallet Ramta in the disputed Shabaa farms, a mountainous region at the Lebanese-Syrian borders occupied by Israel, they said.
The rounds, accompanied by heavy machine-gun fire from Israeli posts in nearby Sammaqa and Rowaissat Aalam, slammed in a valley in Bastara on the other side of the border area, they said.
Israeli helicopters also hovered over the targeted region, they added.
The police said no activity along the Lebanese side of the border had been reported before the Israeli firing, the third such incident this month.
On March 9, the United Nations reported that the Israeli army had fired shells into the same region without inflicting casualties. Three days later, Israeli soldiers fired heavy machine guns into the area.
On both occasions, there were no casualties and no reports of activity on the Lebanese side of the border prior to the shootings.
Since Israel's troop pullout from southern Lebanon in May after 22 years of occupation, the Lebanese Hizbollah movement has launched several attacks on Israeli forces in the Shabaa farms, occupied by the Jewish state from Syria in 1967, and now claimed by Beirut.
The attacks led to the death of two Israeli soldiers and the capture of three others in a bid by Hizbollah to secure a prisoner swap
Within the same context, Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday that Switzerland was not mediating to gain the release of the three Israeli soldiers.
Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon asked Switzerland for help Monday to find the soldiers along with other serviceman who went missing in Lebanon, said the Daily Star newspaper.
"There is a channel which is following the process and we are waiting for the results of its work," Nasrallah said in a statement quoted by the paper.
Germany is believed to have been mediating the release of the three soldiers as well as a fourth Israeli, Elhanan Tannenbaum.
According to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer indicated that he could be willing to release of Lebanese Sheikh Abdel-Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, who were kidnapped in 1989 and 1994 respectively.
An Israeli court ruled two weeks ago that Obeid and Dirani should be held for another month - Albawaba.com
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