Key Points
- Israeli tanks burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, the UN said.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN secretary-general to “withdraw UNIFIL from the combat zones”.
- Hezbollah said it attacked a camp of the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade in Binyamina, wounding 67.
Australia has told Israel that targeting United Nations personnel in Lebanon is “unacceptable” while condemning drone strikes by Hezbollah on Israeli targets.
The UN said Israeli tanks burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon on Sunday morning (local time).
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said two Israeli Merkava tanks destroyed the main gate of a base and forcibly entered before dawn on Sunday.
After the tanks left, shells exploded 100m away, releasing smoke that blew across the base, UNIFIL said.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah militants had fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli troops, wounding 25 of them.
The attack was very close to a UNIFIL post and a tank helping evacuate the casualties under fire then backed into the UNIFIL post, it said.
“It is not storming a base. It is not trying to enter a base. It was a tank under heavy fire, mass casualty event, backing up to get out of harm’s way,” Israeli military’s international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
On Sunday, Hezbollah said it attacked a camp of the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade in Binyamina in northern Israel with a “swarm of drones”.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed, and another seven were severely injured, according to the military.
In a statement on Monday, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade condemned “recent drone strikes” by Hezbollah on Israel.
The spokesperson also said the department had made it “clear to Israel that any targeting or intimidation of UN personnel and facilities in Lebanon is unacceptable and must cease”.
“We continue to call for a ceasefire and for all parties to show restraint, de-escalate and comply with UN Security Council resolutions,” the statement read.
Netanyahu asks UN to ‘withdraw UNIFIL from combat zones’
UNIFIL said any deliberate attack on peacekeepers was a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement addressed to UN secretary-general António Guterres: “The time has come for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones.”
Hezbollah, which Israel has been battling in southern Lebanon since it launched a ground invasion at the start of this month, denies Israel’s accusation that it uses the proximity of peacekeepers for protection.
UNIFIL’s peacekeepers “remain in all positions”, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement, reiterating a warning from the secretary-general that peacekeepers must not be targeted.
“Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime,” Dujarric said.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, typically one of Israel’s most vocal supporters among Western European leaders, spoke to Netanyahu by phone on Sunday and denounced the “unacceptable” Israeli attacks, her government said.
Netanyahu said he told Meloni that he regretted any harm to UNIFIL personnel in Lebanon.
Italy has more than a thousand troops in the 10,000-strong UNIFIL force, making it one of the biggest contributors of personnel.
France and Spain, which each have nearly 700 soldiers in the force, .
Israel’s offensive in Lebanon over the past three weeks has uprooted 1.2 million Lebanese and inflicted an unprecedented blow on the group by killing .
Lebanon’s government says more than 2,100 people have been killed and 10,000 wounded in over a year of fighting, mainly over the past few weeks.
Israeli attacks on Gaza ramp up
Israel’s military operations in northern Gaza have also ramped up, with Palestinian authorities saying hundreds of people have been killed in the past 10 days.
On Monday, an Israeli air strike killed four people and wounded dozens of others when it hit tents of displaced Palestinians inside Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip city of Deir Al-Balah, where a million people were sheltering, medics said.
On Sunday, Israeli tank shelling killed at least 22 Palestinians at a school sheltering displaced families in Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
Hours earlier, an Israeli airstrike killed five children in The Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.
The Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media said the children were playing near a cafe when they were killed by a missile fired from an Israeli drone.
