By Amina Ismail and Timour Azhari
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Two U.N. peacekeepers were injured on Friday by an Israeli strike near their watchtower in south Lebanon, the Israeli military said, while blasts shook the peacekeepers’ main base in the area for the second time in 48 hours as Israeli forces battled Hezbollah.
The UNIFIL force said the incident was a “serious development”, and that the security of U.N. personnel and property must be guaranteed.
France summoned Israel’s ambassador, and issued a joint statement with Italy and Spain saying such attacks were “unjustifiable”. U.S. President Joe Biden said he was asking Israel to not hit the UNIFIL forces. Russia said it was “outraged” and demanded Israel refrain from “hostile actions” against the peacekeepers.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had already condemned the attacks on U.N. personnel.
The Israeli military expressed “deep concern” and said two peacekeepers had been injured by Israeli fire as it was engaging Hezbollah. It said they had been warned hours earlier to take shelter. The United Nations said both were from Sri Lanka.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted one year ago when the Iranian-backed group began launching rockets at northern Israel in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, at the start of the Gaza war.
It has intensified in recent weeks, with Israel bombing southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, killing many of Hezbollah’s top leaders, and sending ground troops across the border. Hezbollah for its part has fired rockets deeper into Israel.
An Israeli strike overnight in the heart of Beirut killed 22 people and wounded 139, caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said. Lebanon’s army said two soldiers were killed and three wounded when Israeli forces attacked one of its military posts in Kafra in the south.
Israel says its campaign in Lebanon aims to make northern Israel safe for tens of thousands of people forced to leave over the last year by Hezbollah rocket fire.
Its expanded operation has displaced more than 1.2 million people, according to the Lebanese government, which says more than 2,100 people have been killed and more than 10,000 wounded in over a year of fighting. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but includes scores of women and children.
Hezbollah rockets have killed at least 54 people in Israel, more than half of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
ISRAEL SEEKS SAFE RETURN OF RESIDENTS
In a video released on Friday, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said it would not stop its campaign “until we ensure that we can safely return the residents not just now, but with a future outlook”.
The head of Hezbollah’s media office, Mohammad Afif, promised Lebanese people displaced by Israeli attacks, most of whom are from Hezbollah’s Shi’ite support base, that they would soon return to their homes.
He said the group’s priority is defeating Israel militarily but it is open to diplomatic efforts to stop “the aggression”.
The watchtower that came under Israeli fire on Friday is located at UNIFIL’s main base in Naqoura. UNIFIL said an Israeli bulldozer had also knocked over barriers at U.N. positions near the Blue Line denoting the frontier between Lebanon and Israel, while tanks had moved into the vicinity.
UNIFIL has more than 10,000 personnel, with Italy, France, Malaysia, Indonesia and India among the biggest contributors.
The chief of staff of Ireland’s Defence Forces, which has around 340 personnel serving in UNIFIL, said he believed Friday’s attack on the observation tower was deliberate.
“An observer tower with a round from a tank directly into it, which is a very small target, has to be very deliberate, and it’s a direct fire. So from a military perspective, this is not an accidental act. It’s a direct act,” Lieutenant General Sean Clancy told RTE television.
Two Indonesian U.N. peacekeepers were injured on Thursday after falling from a watchtower following Israeli tank fire, after which Israel said its troops had opened fire nearby, and that Hezbollah fighters operated from areas near UNIFIL posts.
FAMILY OF EIGHT KILLED BY ISRAELI STRIKE
In Beirut, Thursday night’s airstrike was the third on the centre of the Lebanese capital since Israel went on the offensive on Sept. 23.
Security sources said the target was senior Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa, and that he had survived. A Hezbollah lawmaker visiting the site on Friday said no senior Hezbollah officials had been present at the time.
At a Beirut hospital that received dozens of wounded, a man sat in a chair in a corridor, his knees wrapped in white bandages, and his face and body covered with wounds.
“The situation … I don’t even know how to describe it. We received three martyrs … in pieces,” said Wael al-Jaroush, head of the Makassed hospital’s medical department.
Among the dead were a family of eight, including three children, who had evacuated from the south, a security source said.
In northern Israel, a Thai worker was killed as a result of fallen munition, likely fired from Lebanon, the Israeli military said. It also said the Israeli airforce had killed a Hezbollah commander responsible for attacks with anti-tank missiles into the area of Ramot Naftali in northern Israel.
Hezbollah issued no immediate comment on that claim.
In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards said the body of its deputy commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan – who was killed in Israeli strikes on Beirut on Sept. 27 along with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah – had been found. A Guards statement carried by state media said Nilforoushan’s body would be moved to Iran for burial on an unspecified date.
The Middle East remains on high alert for further escalation, awaiting Israel’s response to an Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1.
(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in the headline)
(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam, Amina Ismail, Timour Azhari, Tom Perry and Abdelhadi Ramahi in Beirut, Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Clauda Tanios, Tala Ramadan and Ahmed Elimam in Dubai and Krishn Kaushi in New Delhi; Writing by Tom Perry, Lincoln Feast, Sharon Singleton, Frances Kerry and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Ros Russell and Deepa Babington)
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