Balloons cause panic in Lebanon

2007-01-29 09:07

Beirut - Balloons advertising an Israeli newspaper drifted across the tense border into southern Lebanon, causing panic among locals and scrambling the Lebanese army, witnesses and officials said on Sunday.

The green and orange balloons - branded with the Hebrew word Ha'ir (The City), the name of a Tel Aviv newspaper - appeared on Saturday in the southern Lebanese cities of Nabatiyeh and Tyre.

Local health officials told AFP that five people were admitted to hospital in Nabatiyeh complaining of nausea and dizziness, as the army - with help from United Nations peacekeepers - rounded up the balloons for a controlled explosion in an open field.

"While our investigation and analysis are continuing, we have told local inhabitants not to touch such balloons in case they contain a toxic gas," an army spokesperson said.

A television station run by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite group that fought a 34-day war with Israel in Lebanon last summer, alleged the balloons had been dropped by Israeli military aircraft and contained toxic gas.

An Israeli military spokesperson in Jerusalem said the balloons had been filled with helium for distribution at "a kind of party" thrown by the Ha'ir newspaper.

"It was a public relations thing," she said. "They gave out balloons with helium in them and the balloons flew away and into Lebanon."

- AFP