An Israeli civilian construction firm has been stripping topsoil from southern Lebanon and transporting it across the border to sell to farmers in northern Galilee, writes Michael Jansen.
It has been happening under the watchful eye of the Israeli army and its local militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA).
The spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Mr Timor Goksel, told The Irish Times that the "systematic" theft of rich, red soil from a 3,000 sq metre field had been taking place since "some time in September".
UNIFIL, which does not operate in the Israeli-occupied zone, was alerted to the soil-stealing enterprise by a Lebanese daily, which carried a detailed story in mid-October.
The Lebanese authorities filed a complaint to the UN peacekeepers, who investigated and found the report to be correct.
The culprits are, Mr Goksel asserted, "civilians from a well-organised civilian contracting firm using bulldozers, loaders and large dump-trucks." In other words, it was a professional operation.
The tract of land which has been denuded of six inches of fertile topsoil is located "very near the border", Mr Goksel said, within a doubly-fenced zone classified as a "closed military area" by the Israeli army.
"There is no way the Israeli army did not know what was happening," he said. "Somebody goofed up."
To counter the bad publicity generated by this enterprise, the Israeli army sent UNIFIL a letter yesterday promising that northern command would investigate and that there would be no recurrence of such action, Mr Goksel said.
South Lebanon is the last active Arab-Israeli front, with Lebanese guerrillas fighting to end control by Israel and the SLA of a 15 km-deep occupation zone.
Israel, which has controlled parts of south Lebanon since 1978, said it set up the formal zone in 1985 to protect its northern borders from possible guerrilla attacks.