Peacekeepers injured in Lebanon | Israel claims it fired towards a ‘threat’

(Jerusalem) Israel said Friday it had fired in the direction of a “threat” near a position of the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon where two peacekeepers were injured, an incident which sparked a burst of international protests.

Leading a vast air and land offensive against Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian Hamas, since the end of September, the Israeli army has accused the pro-Iranian movement of “deliberately” endangering UNIFIL soldiers, four of whom were injured in two days.

UNIFIL reported that its headquarters, in Ras al-Naqoura, suffered “explosions for the second time in 48 hours” on Friday in which “two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were injured”, after two Indonesian soldiers on Thursday.

She denounced the “very great risk” posed by the Israeli army to the Blue Helmets.

“Unacceptable”

The Israeli army said it was “conducting a thorough examination […] to establish the details of what happened.”

She claimed to have fired in the direction of a “threat” close to the UNIFIL position and accused Hezbollah of “deliberately” endangering the Blue Helmets.

Joe Biden added his voice to the criticism on Friday. To the question “Are you asking Israel to stop hitting UN peacekeeping forces?” », the American president, replied: “Absolutely, absolutely”.

French President Emmanuel Macron deemed it “completely unacceptable” that peacekeepers were “deliberately targeted by the Israeli armed forces” and warned that France “will not tolerate” further shooting, during a summit in Cyprus of leaders Mediterranean countries of the EU.

He further estimated that “stopping arms exports” used in Gaza and Lebanon was “the only lever” to end the conflicts raging there.

The ten non-permanent member countries of the UN Security Council expressed their “deep concern” after these attacks and “stressed that any deliberate attack against peacekeeping forces is a serious violation of international humanitarian law”.

As Israel celebrates Yom Kippur, an important Jewish holiday, air raid sirens sounded late in the afternoon in the northwest of the country, with the Israeli army reporting “around 80 projectiles” fired from from Lebanon, then in the evening north of Tel Aviv after the “intrusion” of two drones, one of them having been “intercepted”.

Hezbollah on Friday called on Israelis to move away from military sites in residential areas in the north of the country. “The army of the Israeli enemy is using the houses […] as assembly centers for its officers and soldiers” in several regions of northern Israel and “has military bases” in the main northern cities such as “Haifa, Tiberias, Acre” in particular, declared the pro-Iranian group.

“Immediate ceasefire”

Since October 2023, when Hezbollah opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas, more than 2,100 people have been killed in Lebanon, including more than 1,200 since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official figures.

The UN has recorded nearly 700,000 displaced people inside Lebanon, with around 400,000 people fleeing, most of them to Syria.

On the Israeli border, the Lebanese army reported the death of two soldiers, bringing to four the number of Lebanese soldiers killed since the start of the intensification of Israeli bombardments on Lebanon.

The day after the deadliest Israeli strikes on Beirut since three weeks of war between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on Friday the UN to adopt a resolution for a “total ceasefire and immediate “.

These strikes, which left 22 dead and 117 injured, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, targeted “the head of Hezbollah’s security apparatus Wafic Safa”, a source close to this formation told AFP.

This is the third time that the Israeli army has directly targeted the capital, with Israel concentrating its strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.

The US president’s special envoy, Amos Hochstein, said Friday that Washington was working “tirelessly” for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah.

Israeli bombings

After a year of fighting in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, Israel has concentrated most of its operations on the Lebanese front.

But the Israeli army, which announced the death of a soldier in the Palestinian territory on Friday, has been shelling the north of the Gaza Strip since Sunday and surrounding the town of Jabalia, where it accuses Hamas of reconstituting its forces.

The Gaza Strip’s Civil Defense reported the deaths of 30 people on Friday in a series of Israeli strikes on the city, including “12 dead, including women and children” in the northern town of Jabalia. of the territory.

The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7, 2023 by the Hamas attack which led to the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including the hostages. dead or killed in captivity in Gaza.

At least 42,126 Palestinians were killed, the majority civilians, in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN. Almost all of Gazans’ 2.4 million people have also been displaced.

Aid flowing into Gaza at lowest level in months, UN says

United Nations (UN) humanitarian officials say aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months and warn that vital lines of communication in the territory’s north, where Israel has renewed its offensive military, were cut.

UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq delivered the sad news on Friday, saying the main crossing points into northern Gaza have been closed and no food or other essential supplies have entered from the 1^er october.

More than 400,000 people still in the north are under increasing pressure to move south, he said.

Mr. Haq lamented that in the north of the Gaza Strip, “the situation is terrible,” adding that the entire territory is facing insecurity.

For months, the United Nations has said lawlessness in Gaza, which has led to the withdrawal of supplies from aid trucks and attacks on aid workers and drivers, are major obstacles to relief deliveries — with operations military, few border crossings and delayed and refused Israeli authorizations for convoys.

Last month, the independent UN investigator on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, accused Israel of waging a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians during the Gaza war, an allegation that Israel vehemently denies it.

The Israeli mission to the U.N. did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on the aid reports from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA. But Israel has repeatedly insisted that it has allowed food and other aid into Gaza in significant quantities.

“Israel has not interrupted the entry or coordination of humanitarian aid entering from its territory into the northern Gaza Strip,” COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees the distribution of aid, said on Wednesday. aid to Gaza.

“As proof, humanitarian aid coordinated by COGAT and international organizations will also continue to enter the northern Gaza Strip in the coming days. »

Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press