Adm. Michael Mullen to visit Israel

           An Israel Navy vassal opened fire at a Lebanese fishing boat over the weekend, Army Radio reported on Sunday, adding that none of the crew had been hurt. The clarification came after the Lebanese army reported that an Israeli ship had fired at a boat in the early hours of Saturday morning. In its Sunday statement, the IDF spokesman's office reported that no damage was caused to the fishing boat, and that all of its crew members escaped unharmed. The incident comes as the second firing incident on the otherwise quiet Israel-Lebanon border in the last week, after one Israeli officer was killed last week during clashes between Israel and the Lebanese army. 45-year-old Lt. Col. Dov Harari, from Netanya, was a reserves battalion commander in the engineering corps. Another Israeli officer sustained severe wounds and has been admitted to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. He is in stable condition. Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire on the border Tuesday in the most serious clashes since a fierce war four years ago, and Lebanon said at least three of its soldiers and a journalist were killed in shelling. The violence apparently erupted over a move by Israeli soldiers to trim some hedges along the border, a sign of the level of tensions at the frontier where Israel fought a war in 2006 with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said at the time that his Islamist militia would not stand aside if Israel attacked the Lebanese Army in the future. "I say honestly, that in any place where the Lebanese Army will be assaulted and there's a presence for the resistance, and it is capable, the resistance will not stand silent, or quiet or restrained," Nasrallah told tens of thousands of supporters via video link. He was speaking to mark the fourth anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, just hours after the cross-border skirmish yesterday. Nasrallah said his group was in touch with the Lebanese Army and was at the ready if they needed to be called in. (17,55)