UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon say Israeli forces fired on one of their positions in the south in a “direct and apparently deliberate” attack that damaged a watchtower.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Wednesday that its peacekeepers near Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon observed an Israeli Merkava tank “firing on its guard tower,” adding that “ “two chambers were destroyed and the tower was damaged.”
The incident is the latest in a series of Israeli attacks and violations against peacekeepers in Lebanon and comes as Israel expands its bombing and ground attacks on the country, killing hundreds of people and displacing nearly a quarter of the population. population.
On Sunday, UNIFIL said Israeli troops “forcibly entered” a UNIFIL position near the village of Ramyah, crossing the UN-mandated Blue Line, the de facto border between Israel and Lebanon, with two tanks. Israeli troops later fired smoke bursts near the peacekeepers, leaving 15 personnel with skin irritation and gastrointestinal problems.
UNIFIL also reported that Israeli troops obstructed a critical logistics movement near Meiss el-Jabal on Saturday.
“We remind the IDF and all actors of their obligations to ensure the security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN facilities at all times,” the peacekeeping mission said.
The Israeli government has demanded that UNIFIL abandon its positions in southern Lebanon, alleging that the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah is using peacekeepers as “human shields,” but the peacekeeper has refused to do so.
Hezbollah denies Israel's accusation that it uses the proximity of peacekeepers to protect its fighters.
“Serious concerns”
Israeli ground troops, who entered southern Lebanon more than two weeks ago, have been fighting Hezbollah in the area. Backed by fighter jets, Israeli forces have continued to attack cities and towns. At least 16 people were killed on Wednesday in an Israeli attack on a municipal building in Nabatieh.
The UN Security Council has urged Israel to protect peacekeepers and their positions amid widespread international condemnation of the attacks.
UNIFIL is made up of some 10,000 peacekeepers from more than 50 countries, including Indonesia, India and Ireland.
On Wednesday, 16 EU countries contributing troops to the UN peacekeeping mission called for revised rules of engagement in Lebanon, saying they must be more effective in light of recent attacks.
“The message we want to send to Israel is that if it stops its army, the UN can also change its focus on that part of Lebanon, so that we can peacefully achieve what it is now trying to do by militarily attacking Hezbollah bases. ” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told Italian public broadcaster RAI.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has expressed “particularly serious concerns” over Israel's recent attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.
“We are extremely concerned about the dangerous escalation in Lebanon, we affirm our support for the Lebanese people,” the GCC said in a joint statement with the EU after a summit in Brussels.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's disaster response unit said 27 people were killed and 185 injured in the last 24 hours, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
At least 2,367 people have been killed in Israel's attacks on Lebanon and 11,109 wounded since October 8, 2023, the ministry said.
The disaster response unit recorded 138 airstrikes and bombings in the last day, mainly in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.
Injured emergency workers
Separately, two Lebanese Red Cross paramedics were injured by shrapnel while searching for wounded people after an attack on the city of Jouaiya, in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Red Cross published on the social platform X that two of its ambulances, in coordination with UN peacekeepers, arrived in Jouaiya on Wednesday afternoon following an Israeli raid.
As paramedics began searching for victims, the area was attacked again, leaving two paramedics with minor shrapnel injuries. Both were taken to Jabal Amel hospital “and their condition is not worrying,” the group stated.
Four Lebanese Red Cross volunteers were also injured in an attack on Sunday while responding to an attack in Serbine, a village in Nabatieh governorate.
According to the Ministry of Health, more than 100 paramedics have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since October 8 and more than 220 have been injured. The attacks also destroyed 128 ambulances and fire trucks and damaged at least 10 hospitals and 45 medical centers.
Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem says Israel's systematic destruction of Lebanese towns near their shared border indicates it is trying to make the area uninhabitable.
“In the south, we saw photographs of Israel detonating an entire village, the village of Mhaibib, which is right on the border,” he reported from Beirut.
“That gives an indication that there is an attempt to make the border villages uninhabitable so that people will not return there even if there is an agreement or the end of hostilities between the two sides.”