Hezbollah: 'Missile' in IDF footage really only a metal door
(Video) After IDF spreads footage showing missile being smuggled out of Hezbollah operative's home following an explosion in south Lebanon, al-Manar TV claims video clearly shows it was a metal door and not a missile being removed from the site. 'What were Israeli spy planes doing in Tayr Filsay skies?' asks station website
VIDEO - The website of Hezbollah's al-Manar television channel reported Thursday that the supposed missile in the IDF footage of weapons being smuggled out of a Hezbollah activist's residence where an explosion occurred earlier this week is nothing more than a metal door being taken out to the garbage.
The site claimed that the door successfully threw off the sophisticated, top-of-the-line espionage equipment used by the Israel Air Force.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military released footage it said was shot by one of its drones in the area of the explosion. It said the grainy, black and white video shows Hezbollah members sealing off the explosion site, recovering rockets from the home and driving them away in two covered trucks.
Hezbollah slammed the video as a "fabrication" by Israel and broadcast its own video on Thursday depicting what it said were the true events around the blast.
The video, aired on Hezbollah's al-Manar TV and other local stations, shows two persons loading what appears to be a steel garage door onto a white covered pickup truck in front of the building where the blast allegedly occurred.
The video, which showed no actual aftermath of the blast, also shows two uniformed UN peacekeeper and a Lebanese soldier standing nearby as the pickup is being loaded. The UN mission did not immediately comment on the Hezbollah video.
"The random explosion that occurred in Tayr Filsay in south Lebanon that made a stir in some of the Arab and Western media has returned to its natural proportions despite efforts made by the Zionist enemy to exploit it in its repeated claims that Lebanon and Hezbollah are violating Resolution 1701," wrote the al-Manar website.
The website posed the question: "What were the Israeli spy planes doing in the skies of Tayr Filsay when they shot the pictures that the occupation's leadership was not ashamed of publishing in the media outlets, some of whom rushed to adopt the Israeli position and to exaggerate the event, speaking of casualties, wounded, and mass destruction?"
According to the website, "The inflation is fundamentally unfounded, the Israeli footage is fundamentally unfounded, and whoever builds on this lie is also unfounded."
The website issued criticism that "without any investigation or pre-examinatino, the television stations were quick to broadcast news flashes on the screens of Lebanese, especially those who live in the south of the country, and to publish a shower of items about casualties, wounded, and destruction."
According to the article, tensions were only high the night the story broke, but that in the morning it became clear that only a small explosion took place that caused only light damage and no casualties.
"In the Israeli footage that was released, two people are seen transferring something from the site of the location. According to the Israelis, this is a missile, but in the footage itself, one can clearly see that the people are moving quickly and carrying something light, which cannot logically be a missile," wrote the website.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
