UN says peacekeepers wounded by Israeli fire

Israeli forces fired a tank shell at the UN peacekeepers’ headquarters in southern Lebanon on Thursday, the UN said, injuring two international troops as Israel pursued its campaign against Hizbollah militants.

The strike on a watchtower within the headquarters in the village of Ras al-Naqoura was the third time in 24 hours that Israeli fire struck border posts used by Unifil, the UN’s interim force in Lebanon, the peacekeepers said.

The incidents prompted Italy to summon Israel’s ambassador. Rome’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, said the incidents “may constitute war crimes”. “This is not a mistake and not an accident,” he said on Thursday.

Unifil’s headquarters and nearby border posts have come under repeated fire since Israel began stepping up its campaign against Iran-backed Hizbollah last month — battering Lebanon with thousands of air strikes, killing much of the group’s leadership and launching a ground invasion.

“Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and of Security Council resolution 1701,” Unifil said on Thursday, referring to the UN resolution that grants the force its mandate to patrol southern Lebanon.

Italy, which has more than 1,250 peacekeeping troops in Lebanon, said it had also complained to the UN. Unifil has not released the nationalities of the wounded troops, but Italy and Ireland said their personnel were not involved.

Crosetto said: “The hostile acts carried out and reiterated by Israeli forces [against one of the Unifil bases] could constitute war crimes and certainly represent very serious violations of the norms of international humanitarian law, not justified by any military necessity.”

He said the Israeli ambassador was not able to provide an explanation. “We need formal, real explanations as quickly as possible,” the Italian defence minister added.

Unifil said it was following up with Israel’s military on the issue. The Israel Defense Forces did not reply to a request for comment.

Last week Israel called on UN peacekeeping troops to withdraw from their posts along the Blue Line, the de facto border with Lebanon, as it pushed ahead with its ground invasion. That triggered outrage from states that contribute personnel to the 46-year-old peacekeeping force.

Ireland, which has 347 troops stationed in southern Lebanon as part of a joint battalion with Polish soldiers, rejected those calls, insisting it would not evacuate them even as Israel intensified its air campaign.

Earlier this week Micheál Martin, Ireland’s foreign and defence minister, criticised Israel’s “reckless behaviour”. Asked by RTÉ television if the IDF was using the soldiers as human shields, Martin said: “They are certainly availing of the cover that they present.”

US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said earlier this week: “We don’t want to see Unifil forces put in danger in any way.”

Israeli forces and Hizbollah militants have clashed at several points along or near the informal border in recent days, including near Labbouneh, where one of the UN’s border posts was struck on Thursday.

Unifil has also come under fire from Hizbollah in the past. In 2022, an Irish peacekeeper was killed and another seriously injured when their armoured patrol cars came under fire in a Hizbollah-controlled area.

On Thursday, Unifil said its bases and headquarters were facing “deliberate” fire from Israeli forces, suggesting that they were targeted rather than being caught in the crossfire.

In one instance, IDF soldiers fired on a Unifil position in the southern village of Labbouneh on Wednesday, the international force said, adding that the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering had been hit.

“An IDF drone was observed flying inside the UN position up to the bunker entrance,” it said, adding that IDF soldiers “deliberately fired at and disabled” the border post’s perimeter-monitoring cameras the day before.

In another incident, Unifil said Israeli soldiers had “deliberately fired” on the peacekeepers’ headquarters in Ras al-Naqoura on Wednesday — a building where regular meetings between Israel, Lebanon and Unifil were held before the war — causing damage.

Unifil was established in 1978 and expanded following the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah. It has about 10,500 peacekeeping troops, with major contributing nations including France, Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia and Ghana.

Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, which began late last month, has swollen to four divisions of troops — which at full strength would amount to as many as 20,000 soldiers — as the country’s conflict with Hizbollah has intensified.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 2,100 people over the past year and forced in excess of 1.2mn from their homes, mostly in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese authorities. They have also caused widespread destruction in southern Lebanon.

Israel has said its Lebanon offensive is aimed at securing its northern border area to allow about 60,000 Israelis to return to their homes, after a year of exchanging cross-border fire with Hizbollah.

The Lebanese group began firing rockets towards Israel in support of Gaza a day after the October 7 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

Additional reporting by Mehul Srivastava, Jude Webber in Dublin and Steff Chávez in Washington