22 people killed, two soldiers injured in Israeli attacks in South Lebanon
South Lebanon: Israeli ground soldiers in South Lebanon are suspected of shooting on the UN peacekeeping headquarters, wounding two of them, while Israel launched a targeted air assault on downtown Beirut on Thursday.
According to the Lebanon Health Ministry, Israeli airstrikes on downtown Beirut resulted in 22 fatalities and several injuries, intensifying Israel’s deadly battle with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, who are supported by Iran.
The worst airstrike in more than a year of the conflict struck two residential structures in different neighborhoods at the same time in downtown Beirut. It destroyed the bottom levels of one eight-story building and brought down another.
Following the attacks, senior security officer Wafiq Safa was the target of an alleged unsuccessful effort to assassinate by Hezbollah sources. It said that Safa had not entered any of the buildings that were the targets.
UN Peacekeepers Are Hit
UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, said in a statement that Israeli forces “have repeatedly hit” its headquarters and positions.
It said that Israelis had assaulted a bunker close to where peacekeepers were taking cover, causing damage to cars and a communication system, and that an Israeli tank had “directly” opened fire on an observation tower at the force’s headquarters in the Lebanese town of Naqoura. It claimed to have witnessed an Israeli drone flying toward the entrance of the bunker.
According to Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, the two Indonesian UNIFIL soldiers who were wounded in the assaults and taken to the hospital are Indonesian.
Defense Minister Guido Crosetto of Italy, which has roughly 1,000 troops stationed with UNIFIL, went a step further and said Israel “deliberately targeted” the UNIFIL camp in southern Lebanon with attacks that “may constitute war crimes.”
US Reacts To Peacekeeper Attack
A number of nations, including its main supporter, the US, responded angrily to the IDF Merkava tank firing its weapon against an observation tower at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura.
“We are deeply concerned about reports that Israeli forces fired on two positions and a tower used by UN peacekeepers in Lebanon,” a spokesman for the White House National Security Council said.
The Israeli military stated that it had given the peacekeepers orders to “remain in protected spaces” after acknowledging that it had opened fire at a UN post in southern Lebanon on Thursday.
