BEIRUT (AP) – Two Lebanese soldiers were killed and three others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Friday, the Lebanese army said. The incident embroiled Lebanon’s official army in the escalating conflict between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group.
The Lebanese army said the Israeli airstrike hit a building near a military checkpoint in Khafra, Bint Jubeir governorate, in southern Lebanon. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The attack on the Lebanese army came hours after Israeli forces opened fire on the UN peacekeeping force’s headquarters in southern Lebanon, wounding two peacekeepers for the second time in recent days.
The Lebanese army has largely stayed on the sidelines of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, hoping to prevent it from getting out of control. After Israeli forces launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, Lebanese forces withdrew about 5 kilometers from observation posts along the border.
But the Lebanese army has come under increasing fire as Israel escalates its operations against Hezbollah, including heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and ground incursions on the border. Earlier this month, an Israeli airstrike killed one Lebanese soldier and injured another.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, has also been caught in the middle of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The international military said the explosion occurred near the observation tower of the international military headquarters 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.
UNIFIL has not disclosed the cause of the explosion. However, the Israeli military 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 the intended target was located approximately 50 meters from UNIFIL positions.
United Nations forces say they have sent reinforcements to the area following a separate incident in the early hours of Friday in which an Israeli bulldozer crashed around another UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon and an Israeli tank moved nearby. did.
Two Indonesian peacekeepers were wounded when an Israeli tank fired directly at a watchtower at UNIFIL headquarters, the military said Thursday. It also said Israeli soldiers attacked a bunker at the base where peacekeepers were sheltering, damaging vehicles and communication systems.
These events drew harsh criticism from European countries, including Italy and France, which provide troops to the UN force. 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.
Rescue workers searched through the rubble of collapsed buildings in central Beirut on Friday, hours after two Israeli airstrikes hit the Lebanese capital, killing at least 22 people and injuring dozens. Ta.
The airstrike was the deadliest attack on central Beirut in more than a year of war, hitting two homes in an area swollen with refugees fleeing Israeli shelling across the country. .
Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV and Israeli media reported that the attack was aimed at killing the group’s top security official, Wafik Safa. Almanar said Safa was not in either building at the time. The Israeli military has not commented on the report.
Hezbollah expanded its rocket attacks deeper into populated areas inside Israel. 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.
In Beirut’s Burj Abi Haidar district, civil defense workers and city workers dug out piles of concrete and twisted metal from a three-story building that was destroyed in Thursday night’s strike.
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. He had just come to pick up his wife from work and was holding evening Islamic prayers at home when the explosion occurred.
“The world suddenly turned upside down and darkness spread,” 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 works at the post office. He said the force of the explosion knocked his wife against a wall and that she was struck in the head by a piece of metal.
“I looked her in the face and yelled, ‘Say something!’ but she only responded with cries of pain,” he said. His wife remains in the intensive care unit of a Beirut hospital. The girl suffered only minor injuries.
Mohamed Tarhani said he moved in with his brother in the neighborhood after fleeing southern Lebanon to escape airstrikes in recent 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?”
Civil defense official Walid Hashash said no one was missing and he did not expect more bodies to be buried under the rubble. He added that he would announce the final death toll once the operation was over.
In support of Hamas and the Palestinians, Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel on October 8, 2023, triggering Israeli airstrikes in retaliation. Israel says the aim of the campaign, which has intensified since late September, is to drive Hezbollah from its borders and allow tens of thousands of its citizens who have fled the region to return home.
More than 2,100 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters, civilians and medical personnel, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past year, more than two-thirds of them in the past few weeks. Hezbollah attacks have killed 29 civilians and 39 Israeli soldiers in northern Israel since October 2023 and in southern Lebanon since Israel launched its ground invasion on September 30. So far, Israeli forces are operating in a narrow area of several kilometers (miles) along the border.
The war threatens to get even worse as Israel aims to deal a crushing blow to its longtime adversary Hezbollah. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned this week that unless action is taken against Hezbollah, Lebanese people will suffer the same destruction that Israel’s operation against Hamas has inflicted on Gaza.
Israel also vowed to strike back against Iran, which backs the Lebanese group, after it fired some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last week. The Iranian barrage was in retaliation for previous Israeli airstrikes that killed Hamas leaders in Tehran and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officials in Lebanon.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday reiterated the United States’ support for Israel’s escalation of operations against Hezbollah. He said Israel has a “clear and legitimate” interest in ensuring the return of tens of thousands of its citizens who have been evacuated from their homes near the border because of Hezbollah fires since last October.
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