Boys pranking people by asking them to evacuate their houses in southern Lebanon arrested by State Security

BEIRUT — Lebanon's State Security announced on Tuesday that it arrested three boys who were making "suspicious calls" on Sunday to citizens in the southern village of Tayr Felsay, causing people to "evacuate" from their houses. 

The State Security said that two Palestinians and two Lebanese boys, deluded residents of Tayr Felsay (Sour) that their houses would be bombarded, leading to the evacuation of 25 houses. The agency also said that the boys were playing a prank, adding that the "exceptional circumstances that Lebanon is going through require the highest level of awareness and seriousness." 

However, the mukhtar of the village told L'Orient Today's correspondent Muntasser Abdallah that only one person left his house and people in the village knew that it was a joke on the same day.

"The boys were summoned and the legal requirements were taken against them, in coordination with the Public Prosecution in the South," the State Security's statement continued.

Amid the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border, residents have reported receiving warnings prior to an Israeli airstrike. Last month, minutes before a three-story building was completely destroyed, several residents of the Southern Lebanese village of Wadi Jilo received warning messages on their phones.