William Christou reports from Beirut for the Guardian
Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for a UN inquiry into Israeli attacks on peacekeepers belonging to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) on Friday, after three separate attacks on Unifil personnel in south Lebanon.
HRW said that Israel’s attacks on UN peacekeepers could be a violation of the laws of war, as peacekeepers, including armed members, are civilians. It further called for the UN to “urgently establish” an international investigation in Lebanon and Israel and that their results are made public.
On Friday morning, a Unifil outpost in south Lebanon came under fire. On Thursday, its headquarters in Naqoura had been repeatedly hit, injuring two peacekeepers after an Israeli tank fired at an observation tower on the base. The Israeli military shot at a Unifil position where peacekeepers were sheltering on Wednesday and an Israeli drone flew up to the entrance of the bunker where they were sheltering, Unifil said.
Unifil said its more than 10,400 peacekeepers would remain in south Lebanon until the situation becomes impossible for them to operate. Peacekeepers are already severely restricted in their movements due to Israeli troop presence in south Lebanon.
The peacekeeping force has been present in south Lebanon since 1978, originally designed to confirm Israel’s withdrawal and ensure that armed groups could not use the area as a launching pad for attacks against Israel. Since 2006, it has been tasked with an observation mission to ensure that armed groups do not operate in the area, in line with UN Resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Unifil has also had a focus on facilitating humanitarian access and aid to south Lebanon, a mission it continues to this day.
“With over 2,000 people killed and over one million people displaced in Lebanon since mid-September, it is crucial for Unifil to be allowed to fulfil its civilian protection and humanitarian functions”, Lama Fakih, Middle East and north Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said.
Israel appeared to target Hezbollah’s security chief in airstrikes on Beirut that killed 22 people, in the deadliest raid on the centre of Lebanon’s capital since the Israel-Hezbollah war began, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The raid came as Israel prepared to observe Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar which begins on Friday, while fighting wars against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
“The head of Hezbollah’s security apparatus, Wafiq Safa, was targeted,” a source close to the Iran-backed group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss the matter.
Safa was close to Hezbollah’s late leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month.
In 2019, the US Treasury blacklisted Safa, saying he maintained Hezbollah’s ties to financiers and allegedly helped arrange weapons and drugs smuggling.
AFP reports that there has been no official confirmation from either Hezbollah or Israel that Safa was targeted in the attack that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed 22 people.
Tehran will not hesitate to take “stronger defensive actions” if Israel retaliates for last week’s missile attack by Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has said.
Iran is “fully prepared to take stronger defensive actions, if necessary, in response to any further aggression, and will not hesitate to do so,” Araqchi said in a letter to other foreign ministers, according to a ministry post on X.
Israel has repeatedly said it will respond to Iran’s missile attack at the beginning of this month, launched in retaliation for Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Gaza and the killing of a Hamas leader in Iran.
Araqchi said in his letter that Iran’s missile attack on Israel had been in accordance with its right to self defence under international law and followed much restraint as it sought a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said Israel will hit Iran in a way that will be “lethal, precise and surprising”.
China has expressed “grave concern and strong condemnation” of Israeli attacks on UN peace operations, after peacekeepers said Israeli forces fired on their headquarters in south Lebanon.
“China expresses grave concern and strong condemnation over the Israeli Defense Forces’ attack on UNIFIL positions and observation posts, which resulted in injuries to UNIFIL personnel,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said, referring to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
UN peacekeepers said Israeli fire on their headquarters in south Lebanon Thursday left two Blue Helmets injured, sparking condemnation from European members of the mission.
Israel acknowledged its forces had opened fire in the area, saying the Hezbollah militants on whom it is waging an escalating war operate near UN posts.
William Christou reports from Beirut for the Guardian
Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for a UN inquiry into Israeli attacks on peacekeepers belonging to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) on Friday, after three separate attacks on Unifil personnel in south Lebanon.
HRW said that Israel’s attacks on UN peacekeepers could be a violation of the laws of war, as peacekeepers, including armed members, are civilians. It further called for the UN to “urgently establish” an international investigation in Lebanon and Israel and that their results are made public.
On Friday morning, a Unifil outpost in south Lebanon came under fire. On Thursday, its headquarters in Naqoura had been repeatedly hit, injuring two peacekeepers after an Israeli tank fired at an observation tower on the base. The Israeli military shot at a Unifil position where peacekeepers were sheltering on Wednesday and an Israeli drone flew up to the entrance of the bunker where they were sheltering, Unifil said.
Unifil said its more than 10,400 peacekeepers would remain in south Lebanon until the situation becomes impossible for them to operate. Peacekeepers are already severely restricted in their movements due to Israeli troop presence in south Lebanon.
The peacekeeping force has been present in south Lebanon since 1978, originally designed to confirm Israel’s withdrawal and ensure that armed groups could not use the area as a launching pad for attacks against Israel. Since 2006, it has been tasked with an observation mission to ensure that armed groups do not operate in the area, in line with UN Resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Unifil has also had a focus on facilitating humanitarian access and aid to south Lebanon, a mission it continues to this day.
“With over 2,000 people killed and over one million people displaced in Lebanon since mid-September, it is crucial for Unifil to be allowed to fulfil its civilian protection and humanitarian functions”, Lama Fakih, Middle East and north Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has stated that the US has had an “intense focus” for a year on preventing the spread of conflict in the Middle East, and said his country had been pressuring Israel over the plight of civilians in Gaza, who he said were “caught in a terrible crossfire of Hamas’ instigation.”
Health authorities in Gaza have claimed that over 40,000 people have been killed in the past year by Israel’s ground offensive and aerial bombardment of the territory.
Speaking in Laos, Blinken said there was deep concern in Asia about the plight of people in Gaza, adding:
The intense focus of the US, which has been the case going back a year, and doing just that, (is) preventing these conflicts from spreading. And we’re working on that every day.
We’re working very hard through deterrence and through diplomacy to prevent that from happening. There’s also obviously deep concern that we share about the plight of children, women, and men in Gaza, who for now a year have been caught in a terrible crossfire of Hamas’ instigation.
Blinken supported what he said was Israel’s right to defend itself from attacks from Hezbollah, and its aim to return civilians who had been forced to flee the fighting to their homes, saying “It’s also vitally important that in doing that, [the Israelis] focus on making sure that civilians are protected and, again, are not being caught in a terrible crossfire.”
The Israeli military has claimed to have killed what it described as a commander in the Hezbollah Radwan forces’ anti-tank missile unit in southern Lebanon.
More details soon …
Israel’s military has said in a statement on its official Telegram channel that this morning in intercepted two UAVs from the direction of Lebanon. It said they did not cross into Israeli airspace.
Reuters has a quick snap that it has been informed by a UN source that Israel again fired at a UN observation post in southern Lebanon, injuring two people.
More details soon …
Israel’s Magen David Adom has reported that one person has been killed and another wounded at a kibbutz in northern Israel by anti-tank fire from Lebanon.
Israel’s emergency services said the person killed was a 27-year-old Thai national working at kibbutz Yiron.
More details soon …
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports two people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Jabalia and on Gaza City in the Gaza Strip. Five people, it reports, were rescued after being trapped in a house that had been targeted.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Al Jazeera reports a statement from the Iranian Red Crescent which claims Israel has struck its field hospital situated on the Lebanon-Syria border.
Pir Hossein Kolivand, head of the Iranian Red Crescent, is quoted as saying “Supplies, including food, medical items, and equipment, were stationed there, clearly marked with Red Crescent flags. It was evident from the air and the ground that the location was designated for healthcare services, emergency relief, and temporary shelter. Unfortunately, early this morning, the site was targeted by the Zionist regime. Everything was destroyed.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
CNN in the US is reporting that it has been briefed by an official that Israel’s security cabinet did not reach agreement on Thursday on how to attack Iran in response to the volley of missiles Tehran fired in a direct attack on Israel on 1 October. Those launches were, Iran said, a retaliation for the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah by Israel. Iran has vowed to respond to any Israeli attack.
Israeli media reports that a barrage of about 20 projectiles has been fired into Israel’s north-west from the direction of Lebanon, appearing to target the Acre and Krayot areas north of Haifa on the coast. There were no immediate reports of any casualties.
The National News Agency in Lebanon has carried an update from the country’s civil defense department on the search and rescue operation mounted in Beirut after an Israeli airstrike which, according to reports, killed at least 22 people and left 117 wounded.
The emergency services say that in addition to recovering bodies, they transported the injured to hospital and evacuated nearby buildings. They also worked to extinguish fires, and report that five people are still missing.
Israel’s army says it has killed Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad’s top commander for the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, AFP reports:
The military said Mohammad Abdullah was “eliminated” on Thursday after Israeli aircraft struck the camp in Tulkarem.
An additional “terrorist” was killed in the operation, which recovered M-16 rifles and vests, it added.
Abdullah was the successor of Muhammad Jabber, also known as Abu Shujaa, who was killed in an Israeli strike in late August.
Islamic Jihad is an ally of Hamas, with both groups battling Israeli forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
European Council president Charles Michel said an “attack” on UN peace operations was “not acceptable”, after peacekeepers said Israeli forces fired on their headquarters in south Lebanon, injuring two blue helmets from Indonesia.
“An attack against a UN peace mission is not responsible, is not acceptable and that’s why we call on Israel and we call on all sides to fully respect international humanitarian law,” he told AFP.
Michel joins a growing chorus of international leaders and member states who contribute troops to the UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil), at a time Israel is already under scrutiny on multiple fronts for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Among the most vociferous was Italy, where defence minister Guido Crosetto said he has asked for a formal explanation from Israeli authorities on the attacks on Unifil bases, which he said “were not an accident nor a mistake”.
“We won’t accept the justification that Israeli military forces had previously alerted Unifil that some of its bases had to be abandoned,” he said.
Indonesia’s UN ambassador Hari Prabowo, meanwhile, said the incident “clearly demonstrates how Israel positioned itself above international law, above impunity and above our shared values of peace”.
UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix has told the security council that the safety of more than 10,400 UN peacekeepers in Lebanon was “increasingly in jeopardy” and operations had virtually halted since late September, coinciding with Israel’s escalation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Peacekeepers have been confined to their bases with significant periods of time in shelter,” he said, adding that the mission – known as Unifil – was ready to support all efforts towards a diplomatic solution.
His comments came after the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said Israeli forces had deliberately fired on its positions, injuring two peacekeepers from Indonesia. Unifil called attacks on peacekeepers “a grave violation of international humanitarian law”.
The White House said the US was deeply concerned by those reports and was pressing Israel for details. Israel’s military said its troops operated in the Naqoura area, “next to a Unifil base”. “Accordingly, the IDF instructed the UN forces in the area to remain in protected spaces, following which the forces opened fire in the area,” Israel’s statement said, adding it maintains routine communication with Unifil.
The peacekeepers were determined to remain at their posts despite Israeli attacks and orders by Israel’s military to leave, said the UN force’s spokesperson, Andrea Tenenti. Its 50 contributing countries had agreed on Thursday to keep deploying more than 10,000 peacekeepers between the Litani River in the north and the UN-recognised boundary between Lebanon and Israel known as the Blue Line in the south.
“We are there because the [UN] security council has asked us to be there. So we are staying until the situation becomes impossible for us to operate,” Tenenti said.
In New York, Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said Israel recommended Unifil relocate 5km north “to avoid danger as fighting intensifies”.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
The safety and security of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon are “increasingly in jeopardy” and operational activities have virtually come to a halt since since 23 September, UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the security council on Thursday evening.
“Peacekeepers have been confined to their bases with significant periods of time in shelter,” he said, adding that the mission – known as Unifil – was ready to support all efforts towards a diplomatic solution.
It comes after the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said on Thursday that Israeli forces had deliberately fired on its positions, injuring two peacekeepers.
European Council president Charles Michel said the firing was “not responsible” and “not acceptable”.
More on that in a moment.
At least 22 people were killed and more than 100 others injured after Israeli airstrikes hit residential areas of central Beirut on Thursday evening. The strikes hit the working-class district of Basta and the Nweiri neighbourhood, the deadliest attacks to target central Beirut since Israel intensified its bombardment campaign on the country two weeks ago. Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV reported that the strikes were an attempt to assassinate Wafiq Safa, a top security official with the group, which it said had failed.
At least 28 people, including women and children, have been killed after an Israeli airstrike hit a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza on Thursday morning. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it had responded to 27 fatalities and 54 injuries after the strike on the school turned shelter in Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military said it targeted militants who were operating in the compound.
The Israeli military continued to push on with an offensive that began six days ago, when it sent its troops into Jabaliya, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya. Palestinian health officials say at least 130 people have been killed so far in the operation, which Israel says is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping. The military has told residents to evacuate an area in which the UN estimates more than 400,000 people are trapped.
Three hospitals in northern Gaza – Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals – have been ordered by Israeli forces to evacuate, putting patients’ lives at risk, medics say. The director of Kamal Adwan hospital n northern Gaza said eight patients, mostly children, were at risk inside the intensive care units should the Israeli army force them to evacuate. Israeli bombardment near Kamal Adwan hospital has already caused some damage to the facility, medics said. Officials said they know of many fatalities lying on the roads outside the hospital because of Israeli fire.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, said some Unrwa shelters and services were being forced to shut down for the first time since the war began and that with almost no basic supplies available, hunger was spreading again in northern Gaza, amid witness accounts of bodies lying uncollected in the streets because of the renewed fighting.