BEIRUT (AP) – Two Lebanese soldiers were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday, hours after Israeli forces opened fire on the United Nations peacekeeping force’s headquarters in southern Lebanon, wounding two peacekeepers. and three others were injured, the Lebanese army said. day to day.
The incident, which involved both the Lebanese official army and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, which had mainly been watching from the sidelines during the conflict between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, resulted in Israel carrying out repeated heavy airstrikes against Hezbollah in various locations. We are increasing our vigilance as we expand our operations. Ground invasions on countries and borders.
In central Beirut on Friday, rescue workers searched through the rubble of collapsed buildings for survivors of an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 22 people and injured dozens in the Lebanese capital the night before. I was doing it.
Since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in support of Hamas and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on October 8, 2023, it has elicited Israeli retaliatory airstrikes, targeting 2,229 targets including Hezbollah fighters, civilians, and medical personnel. It was reported that more than one Lebanese were killed. Lebanese Ministry of Health. The ministry said 60 people were killed and 168 injured in Israeli airstrikes in the past 24 hours alone.
Hezbollah attacks have killed 29 civilians and 39 Israeli soldiers in northern Israel since October 2023 and in southern Lebanon since September 30, when Israel launched its ground invasion.
Israel attacks Lebanese army checkpoint
On Friday, the Lebanese army said Israeli airstrikes hit a building near a military checkpoint in the southern province of Bint Jubeir. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The Lebanese army is not involved in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. After Israel launched its ground invasion on September 30, Lebanese soldiers withdrew about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from observation posts along the border.
The only direct conflict between the two countries’ forces occurred on October 3, when an Israeli tank fired on a Lebanese military post, also in the Bint Jubeir area, killing one soldier, and Lebanese soldiers returned fire.
Both the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers have been sent to southern Lebanon to enforce the UN resolution that helped end the bloody month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
Israel attacks UN peacekeepers again, injuring two
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said the explosion occurred near its headquarters watchtower in the southern Lebanese town of Nakoura. It said one of the wounded peacekeepers was hospitalized in the nearby city of Tire, while the other was treated at the scene.
Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement condemning the attack that the two injured were Sri Lankan nationals. France, which also provides troops to international forces, said one of its peacekeepers was in critical condition.
The Israeli army said its soldiers operating in southern Lebanon perceived a threat and opened fire, ultimately hitting a UNIFIL post and wounding two peacekeepers. The military said an initial investigation showed that Israel’s intended firing target was located approximately 50 meters from UNIFIL positions.
The United Nations force said it had sent reinforcements to the area following an earlier incident on Friday in which an Israeli bulldozer crashed around another UNIFIL position and an Israeli tank moved nearby.
The report was released just one day after Israeli tank fire struck the same UNIFIL headquarters, injuring two Indonesian peacekeepers and drawing harsh international criticism. UNIFIL said Israeli soldiers attacked a bunker at the base where peacekeepers were sheltering, damaging vehicles and communication systems.
Condemnation of the Israeli attack continued on Friday, with the French Foreign Ministry accusing Israel of intentionally firing on peacekeepers and summoning the Israeli ambassador to protest.
According to the Pentagon, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin emphasized the importance of ensuring the safety of UNIFIL forces in a telephone conversation with his Israeli counterpart and urged Israel to “shift from military operations to diplomatic channels as soon as possible.” I asked for it.
Israel has warned peacekeepers to leave positions near where Hezbollah militants allegedly fired rockets into northern Israel in cross-border attacks over the past year. Following Thursday’s attack, UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix announced that 300 peacekeepers on the front lines of Lebanon’s southern border had been temporarily moved to a larger base.
Lacroix said peacekeepers will not conduct patrols but will remain in position as air and ground attacks continue.
UNIFIL has more than 10,000 peacekeepers from dozens of countries and was established to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion. After the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the United Nations expanded its mandate to allow peacekeepers to patrol buffer zones set up along the border.
Israel accuses Hezbollah of setting up fighting facilities along the border in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ended the 2006 war.
Beirut residents shaken by Israeli attack
In the Burj Abi Haidar district of central Beirut, civil defense workers dug out concrete and twisted metal from a three-story building that collapsed in Israel’s worst air raid on Beirut last year of the war.
Israeli airstrikes on Thursday hit two homes in an area swollen with refugees fleeing Israeli shelling elsewhere in the country.
In an adjoining building that was badly damaged, Ahmad Al Khatib stood in his in-laws’ apartment, where he, his wife Marwa Hamdan, and their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Ayla were killed. I was injured in the explosion. He had picked up his wife from work and was holding evening Islamic prayers at home when an explosion shook the neighborhood.
“The world suddenly turned upside down,” the 42-year-old said with tears streaming down his cheeks. He pulled his daughter out from under a piece of collapsed wall in her bedroom. Al Khatib, who works at the post office, said he found his wife knocked against a wall by the force of the explosion and a piece of metal hitting her in the head. His wife remains in the intensive care unit of a Beirut hospital.
Hezbollah’s al-Manar television station and Israeli media reported that the airstrike was aimed at killing the group’s top security official, Wafik Safa, who at the time said he was not in either building. It was reported that there was no one. The Israeli military has not commented on the report.
Another resident, Mohamed Tarhani, said he moved in with his brother in Burj Abi Haidar after fleeing southern Lebanon to escape airstrikes over the past few weeks. His children were out on the balcony and he was in the living room when the strike occurred.
“We rushed outside to look for our children,” he said. “Where should we go now?”
Meanwhile, Hezbollah expanded its rocket attacks into populated areas deep inside Israel, continuing to do so throughout the day on Friday. Hezbollah’s barrage of fire has disrupted Israeli life, but in most cases there have been no casualties.
But early Friday morning, an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon killed a man from Thailand who was working on a farm in northern Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that unless action is taken against Hezbollah, the Lebanese people will suffer the same destruction that Israel’s operation against Hamas has inflicted on Gaza since the extremist group’s October 7 attack on Israel. I warned you that you would get it.
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