Agence France Presse said Sunday the balloons were advertising an Israeli newspaper.
AFP cited witnesses and officials as saying the balloons drifted across the tense border into southern Lebanon, causing panic among locals and scrambling the Lebanese army.
The National News Agency said eight people were hospitalized Saturday after inhaling toxic gases from poisonous balloons dropped by Israeli warplanes over Upper Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon.
NNA on Saturday said contacts have been made between the Lebanese army command and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, which has instructed an Italian peacekeeping unit to take samples from the balloons for examination. The agency said the results are likely to come out on Sunday.
The army, in a communiqué issued Friday, warned civilians against messing with the balloons and urged them to report finding them to the closest army unit.
AFP said the green and orange balloons -- branded with the Hebrew word Ha'ir (The City), the name of a Tel Aviv newspaper -- appeared Saturday in the southern 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 UNIFIL -- 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 toxic gases," an army spokesman said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman 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."(Naharnet-AFP)
Beirut, 28 Jan 07, 22:24
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