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Five peacekeepers injured in southern Lebanon where Israel intensifies its strikes
Five peacekeepers were injured and three civilians killed Thursday by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, where Israel is intensifying its strikes against strongholds of Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian Hamas in the war-devastated Gaza Strip. Violent strikes Israeli attacks targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut, including one which caused “minor damage” to buildings at Beirut International Airport “but not to the terminal”, according to an official the airport. Air traffic was not disrupted, authorities assured. Since September 23, Israel has been carrying out a campaign of intense strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and since September 30 a ground offensive in the south of the country, with objective of bringing home some 60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced by cross-border firefights. Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel since October 8 2023, the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in support of the Palestinian Islamist movement. A strike “by the Israeli enemy” which “targeted a car” at the entrance to Saida, the large city in southern Lebanon located about forty kilometers from Beirut, “caused the death of three passengers”, the Lebanese army said on Thursday. It occurred “as a convoy of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) passed through an army checkpoint”, which controls the northern entrance to Saida, she said, making report of three Lebanese soldiers injured. UNIFIL said five peacekeepers were “slightly injured”. Questioned by AFP, Israel did not immediately comment. According to the Lebanese army, the injured peacekeepers are part of the Malaysian contingent of the UN force deployed since 1978 in southern Lebanon to act as a buffer with Israel. On Thursday, people were inspecting the damage at the site of the strike near Beirut airport, which caused an entire parking lot to “shake”, according to Abou Elie, a driver of taxi on site at the time of the bombing. An AFP photographer saw a hangar adjoining the airport, badly damaged, by the strike, which came after Hezbollah announced on Wednesday that it had targeted a military base near Ben airport. Gurion, Israel’s main airport.- “Urgent need” -The Israeli army continues its airstrikes against the Shiite movement in southern and eastern Lebanon, where it said it had targeted dozens of targets and killed one sixty fighters in several strikes in Baalbeck (east) and north of the Litani River, located around thirty kilometers from the Israeli border. The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported 40 dead in Israeli strikes on Wednesday in the east of Lebanon, notably in the thousand-year-old city of Baalbeck, classified by UNESCO on its world heritage list. More than 100 Lebanese deputies called on UNESCO on Thursday to protect the country’s historic sites. In a letter to the organization’s general director, Audrey Azoulay, the deputies reported an “urgent need”: “the protection of the history of Lebanon, in Baalbeck, Tire (south), Saida and other invaluable sites currently under threat.”More than 2,600 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, the majority of them civilians, according to the Lebanese Minister of Health, Firass Abiad.The Hezbollah, an Islamist movement allied with Iran, whose leadership has been largely weakened, ensures that its men are repelling Israeli incursions and announces daily shootings on Israel. The official Lebanese news agency Ani reported Thursday “violent fighting ” after an “attempted incursion by the Israeli enemy” into Lebanese territory from the north of Israel. – “Intolerable” -At its southern border, the Israeli army continues its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, besieged and in the grip of a humanitarian disaster. The Israeli army once again called on Thursday the inhabitants of several sectors of the city of Gaza (north) to evacuate “combat zones dangerous” after rocket fire towards Israel. Shortly before, she had announced an operation in the Beit Lahia sector, about nine kilometers from Gaza city. The Palestinian Civil Defense reported at least 12 people killed Thursday in an Israeli strike on a school transformed into a shelter for displaced families near Gaza City. “People are mentally exhausted. The situation in Gaza is (. ..) unbearable, intolerable,” Arwa Jalal, a Palestinian from Jabalia (north), lamented to AFPTV. Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israeli soil, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including the hostages. killed or died in captivity. That day, 251 people were kidnapped. In total, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army. The Israeli offensive launched in retaliation in the Gaza Strip left 43,469 dead, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health, deemed reliable by the UN.bur-ila-anr/feb
