Lebanon's interior ministry said casings of mortar bombs fired at Israel from southern Lebanon Wednesday had Hebrew inscriptions, accusing Israel of a "provocation" to justify future attacks.
The joint Lebanese army and police force deployed in the region "found an 81mm mortar and used casings with Hebrew inscriptions, which raises doubts about the side behind the mortar attacks," said a ministry statement read on the Tele-Liban state television station.
"It is an attempt to accuse Lebanon of provoking this incident to justify Israeli aggressions on the areas liberated" from 22 years of Israeli occupation after the Jewish state's troop pullout from south Lebanon in May.
The statement did not mention the arrest of any suspects, despite rumors, and a Lebanese top security official who did not wish to be identified confirmed to AFP that none had been made.
It was not immediately known who fired the mortar bombs, and Lebanese security forces said they were hunting those responsible, said to have been travelling in a blue 1975 Mercedes.
Nearly 200 police and troops were scouring the roads in the area in the search for the car, Lebanese police said.
An official said it was not the work of the Hizbollah, the group which spearheaded the guerrilla war against Israel's occupation, adding that the mortar attack was "contrary to Lebanese policy."
After the mortar attacks, more than 50 Israeli tank and artillery shells rained down on the hamlet of Bastara near the disputed Shebaa Farms area in an hour-long bombardment that killed about one hundred goats.
An Israeli helicopter and a pilotless reconnaissance drone had flown over the area before the bombardment, the heaviest since Hizbollah guerrillas captured three Israeli soldiers in a raid on the Shebaa farms in October in order to secure a prisoners swap.
Israeli troops captured the Shebaa farms from Syria in 1967 and still occupy them, though Beirut maintains they are Lebanese territory and should have been evacuated by the Israelis when they withdrew from south Lebanon -- BEIRUT (AFP)
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