At least five UNIFIL soldiers were injured again this Thursday during an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon. A diplomatic incident also punctuated the visit of the head of French diplomacy during a trip near Jerusalem.
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After a new wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday, which left 52 dead and 161 injured, the country was targeted again this Thursday. Several major airstrikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, including one very close to Lebanon’s only international airport. The Israeli army had previously issued an evacuation notice for the site, saying it was Hezbollah facilities, without giving further details.
UNIFIL soldiers injured
While these attacks do not appear to have caused any casualties, another Israeli strike did hit a car at a military checkpoint in the port city of Sidon, in the south of the country, killing three people and injuring seven others, including five UNIFIL peacekeepers.
The Lebanese army said the injured were Lebanese soldiers and Malaysian U.N. peacekeepers, but there was no immediate information on the identities of those who died.
A third drone strike earlier in the morning also hit a car on a main highway outside Beirut, killing a woman, according to local media.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, over the past year, 2,230 men, 614 women and 192 children were killed in Israeli attacks which also caused a mass exodus: 1.2 million people were forced to leave their homes. home, including more than 400,000 children, according to the United Nations children’s agency.
Protection of heritage
This Thursday, around a hundred members of the Lebanese Parliament sent an “urgent message” to UNESCO calling for the protection of the country’s heritage. The lawmakers’ announcement comes after the Israeli Air Force recently struck areas near archaeological sites in different parts of Lebanon, including the northeastern city of Baalbek and the southern port city of Tyre. south. UNESCO announced that this appeal would be debated on November 18.
While Jean-Noël Barrot, the head of French diplomacy, is in Israel, a diplomatic incident occurred on Thursday, pitting the French administration against the Israeli authorities. According to Paris, Israeli police entered “armed” and “without authorization” into the Eléona religious site belonging to France. For Jean-Noël Barrot, this is an “attack on the integrity of an area placed under the responsibility of France” and “is likely to weaken the links that I had nevertheless come to cultivate with Israel. “
Diplomatic incident
The Israeli ambassador in Paris will be summoned “in the coming days” to discuss this incident, announced the Quai d’Orsay.
Despite this incident, the head of French diplomacy estimated earlier that the election of Donald Trump could make it possible to consider “a diplomatic solution to the current conflict. Because force alone cannot guarantee Israel’s security.”
During a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, Jean-Noël Barrot also declared that American President-elect Donald Trump had no “never hid his desire to put an end to the endless wars in the Middle East” even if the Palestinian question will not disappear, “regardless of the American administration in place.”
