Middle East latest: UN mission in Lebanon hit again by explosions

The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said new explosions hit its headquarters Friday, injuring two peacekeepers, a day after Israeli forces targeted the same position and struck central Beirut.

Earlier Friday, cross-border fire from Lebanon killed a young man from Thailand who was working on a farm in the north of Israel.

At least 22 people were killed and 117 wounded in Israeli airstrikes that hit two areas in central Beirut on Thursday night, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The air raid was the deadliest attack on central Beirut in over a year of war, hitting two residential buildings in neighborhoods that have swelled with displaced people fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere in the country.

The strikes came as Israel escalates its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border, after a year of exchanges of fire between the two rivals.

Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, which began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

A year ago, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

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Here is the latest:

Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni said Friday that the Italian government is following the situation of the Italian peacekeeping contingent in southern Lebanon “with great attention,” reiterating her strong condemnation of the Israeli attacks on the U.N. bases in the area.

The Italian soldiers engaged in the UNIFIL mission “are doing a fundamental, valuable work for the stabilisation of the area, ” Meloni said, speaking at the final press conference of the Med9 Summit in Cyprus. She recalled that the UNIFIL mission’s headquarters and two Italian bases have been hit by gunfire attacks launched by Israeli forces.

“I can’t avoid to go back and condemn what happened. It is not acceptable,” Meloni said, confirming that the Italian government has “strongly protested” to the Israeli authorities over the attacks.

Meloni added that she was also working with her international colleagues on a common initiative to be discussed during the G7 Defense summit, which will take place in the coming days, “to implement our joint efforts to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces.”

WAHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Thursday to discuss Israel’s operations in Lebanon.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Austin reaffirmed ironclad support for Israel’s right to defend itself and reiterated the U.S. commitment to a diplomatic arrangement that safely returns both Lebanese and Israeli civilians to their homes on both sides of the border.

He said Austin emphasized the importance of ensuring the safety of UNIFIL forces in the area and urged Israel to “pivot from military operations to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible.”

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s crisis response unit announced Friday that 60 people were killed and 168 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,229 killed and 10,380 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The casualty toll was notably higher than previous days, with 22 people killed and 117 wounded in two Israeli strikes on two locations in central Beirut. The strike caused the collapse of two residential buildings housing families and displaced individuals.

The crisis response unit report also recorded 57 airstrikes and incidents of shelling in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

Some 1,032 centers — including educational complexes, vocational institutes, universities and other institutions — are sheltering 187,000 people, including 39,000 families, displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, the report said. Among these shelters, 837 have now reached full capacity.

Despite a major border crossing between Lebanon and Syria being out of commission after an Israeli strike hit the road last week, crowds have continued to flow across the border seeking relative safety in Syria. Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 9, Lebanese General Security recorded 317,457 Syrian citizens and 115,044 Lebanese citizens crossing into Syria, the report said.

SAO PAULO — Brazil’s fourth repatriation plane left Beirut for Brazil on Friday, carrying 211 passengers including 12 infants, according to a statement from Brazil’s foreign ministry. The flight is set to land in Sao Paulo on Saturday morning local time after a stop to refuel in Lisbon.

The Brazilian government has evacuated 885 people and 11 pets from Lebanon in one week, the foreign ministry said.

About 21,000 Brazilians live in Lebanon, which is home to the largest community of Brazilians in the Middle East. Two Brazilian adolescents have been killed by Israeli bombardments in Lebanon.

The Brazilian Embassy in Beirut remains in contact with Brazilians and their close family members to organize a new repatriation flight depending on the security conditions, according to the foreign ministry.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan foreign ministry said two Sri Lankan soldiers who were serving in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon were wounded following the attacks on the U.N. base.

“Sri Lanka strongly condemns the attack at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura, South Lebanon injuring two Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers. Sri Lanka upholds the obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and inviolability of UN premises at all times," the foreign ministry said Friday.

The U.N. force, known as UNIFIL, said new explosions hit its headquarters on Friday morning and injured two peacekeepers a day after Israeli forces struck the same position. The force has more than 10,000 peacekeepers from dozens of countries.

Two Lebanese soldiers were killed and three others wounded in an Israeli airstrike that hit a building near a Lebanese Army checkpoint in Kafra, Bint Jbeil province, the Lebanese Army said Friday.

Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border while the Lebanese army has largely stood on the sidelines.

As Israeli troops made their first forays across the border and Hezbollah responded with rocket fire, Lebanese soldiers withdrew from observation posts along the frontier and repositioned about 5 km back.

On Oct. 3, a Lebanese soldier was killed and another injured in an Israeli strike in Taybeh during rescue operations. On Sept. 30, another Lebanese soldier was killed by an Israeli drone targeting a Lebanese Army checkpoint in Wazzani.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon says new explosions hit its headquarters on Friday morning, injuring two peacekeepers, a day after Israeli forces struck the same position.

The force, known as UNIFIL, said the explosions went off close to an observation tower at its headquarters in the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura. One of the injured peacekeepers was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Tyre, while the other was treated at the site. It did not specify the cause of the blasts.

It also said an Israeli army bulldozer hit the perimeter of another of its positions in southern Lebanon while Israeli tanks moved nearby. Additional peacekeepers were sent to reinforce the position, it said.

Human Rights Watch says the Israeli military's deliberate and repeated attacks on the U.N. peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon are unlawful and amount to war crimes.

The New York-based rights group issued a statement amid widespread condemnation of the attack by Israeli forces on the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, which wounded two peacekeepers a day earlier.

“Any targeting of UN peacekeepers by Israeli forces violates the laws of war and dangerously interferes with UNIFIL’s civilian protection and aid work,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

“With over 2,000 people killed and over a million people displaced in Lebanon since mid-September, it is crucial for UNIFIL to be allowed to fulfil its civilian protection and humanitarian functions,” Fakih said.

GENEVA – The U.N. is getting ready for the start a second round of polio vaccinations for children in Gaza next week, and appealed for the implementation of a “humanitarian pause” to enable the campaign.

A first round of vaccinations was concluded last month after the detection of Gaza’s first polio case in 25 years. The new round is due to start on Monday and aims to give a second dose to some 591,700 children.

Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s representative in the Palestinian territories, said Friday that a pause in fighting will once again be a “prerequisite” for a successful second round.

He said that “we renew our request for all parties of the conflict to implement this necessary humanitarian pause” in Gaza. He added that this is “particularly critical as new evacuation orders in the north of Gaza are threatening access to hospitals and protection of health facilities and health and community workers.”

VIENTIANE, Laos — Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday gave support to Israel’s escalated campaign against Hezbollah, saying it had “clear and legitimate” reasons, but said the U.S. is trying to find a diplomatic solution to the war.

“When the horror of Oct. 7 happened, the next day Hezbollah joined in, trying to create another front in the process,” he told a news conference after attending an annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Laos.

He said Israel has a “clear and very legitimate interest” in trying to allow the return of its citizens who were evacuated from their homes in northern Israel because of Hezbollah fire. “The people of Lebanon want the same thing,” he said, referring to Lebanese who fled homes near the border to escape Israeli bombardment.

“We believe that the best way to get there is through a diplomatic understanding, one that we’ve been working on for some time and one that we’re extremely focused on right now,” he said.

Blinken said it was also important that civilians are protected amid fighting in Lebanon and Gaza, adding that not enough humanitarian aid is reaching north Gaza and other areas.

JERUSALEM — Cross-border fire from Lebanon killed a young worker from Thailand in the north of Israel early Friday, Israel’s military said.

Israel's military said that the 27-year-old was killed by a rocket that hit farmland. The Thai Embassy in Israel and Israel's paramedic service said he was killed by an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon. The two accounts could not immediately be reconciled.

The man was a farmworker on Kibbutz Yir'on, a communal farm in the north, the embassy said in a Facebook post Friday. The attack also “severely traumatized” another worker.

The embassy was working on getting in touch with the man’s family, a spokesperson for Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at a news conference in Bangkok.

The Israeli military said two other civilians were injured in the same incident Friday. Hezbollah claimed one missile attack on a military position in the north Friday morning.

Hezbollah and other militants in Lebanon have been exchanging fire with Israel for the past year. Israel recently escalated bombardment in Lebanon and invaded a strip inside the Lebanese border, vowing to push out Hezbollah fighters.

Friday’s strike was one of the first civilian deaths in Israel since the escalation began in late September. Two Israelis were killed by rocket debris Wednesday. On the Lebanese side, Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,400 people in the past three weeks, including fighters, civilians and medical personnel.

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey condemned Israel’s attack on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, characterizing it as “a manifestation of its perception that its crimes go unpunished.”

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said in a statement Thursday that its headquarters and positions “have been repeatedly hit” by Israeli forces. Two UNIFIL troops were wounded in the attacks.

The Israeli military acknowledged opening fire at a U.N. base in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it had ordered the peacekeepers to “remain in protected spaces.”

“The international community is obliged to ensure that Israel abides by international law,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late Thursday. “We will continue to support all initiatives within the framework of international law to promote peace in the region.

Turkey contributes to UNIFIL Maritime Task Force with a corvette and five personnel, the ministry said.