Key points
- Israeli tanks have smashed through the gates of a peacekeepers base in southern Lebanon, the UN said.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN Secretary General to “withdraw UNIFIL from combat zones”.
- Hezbollah said it attacked an Israeli army Golani Brigade camp in Binyamina, wounding 67.
Australia has told Israel that targeting UN personnel in Lebanon is “unacceptable” as it condemns Hezbollah drone strikes on Israeli targets.
The UN said Israeli tanks stormed through the gates of a peacekeepers base 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 forced their way in before dawn on Sunday.
After the tanks left, shells exploded 100 meters away, releasing smoke that spread across the base, UNIFIL said.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah militants fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli troops, wounding 25 of them.
The attack occurred very close to a UNIFIL position and a tank helping to evacuate victims under fire, then retreated to the UNIFIL position, he said.
“It’s not storming a base. It’s not trying to enter a base. It was a tank under heavy fire, a mass casualty event, backing out of harm’s way,” the spokesperson told reporters Israeli Army international Nadav Shoshani.
On Sunday, Hezbollah said it attacked a camp of the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade in Binyamina, northern Israel, with a “swarm of drones.”
According to the military, four Israeli soldiers were killed and seven others were seriously injured.
In a statement on Monday, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade condemned Hezbollah’s “recent drone attacks” on Israel.
The spokesperson also said the department had made “clear to Israel that any attacks or intimidation of United Nations personnel and facilities in Lebanon is unacceptable and must stop.”
“We continue to call for a ceasefire and for all parties to show restraint, de-escalation and respect United Nations Security Council resolutions,” the statement read.
Netanyahu calls on the UN to “withdraw UNIFIL from combat zones”
UNIFIL said that any deliberate attack against peacekeepers constituted a serious violation of international humanitarian law.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement addressed to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday: “The time has come to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and combat zones.”
Hezbollah, which Israel has been fighting in southern Lebanon since it launched a ground invasion earlier this month, denies Israel’s accusation of using the peacekeepers’ proximity for protection.
UNIFIL peacekeepers “remain in all positions,” U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement, reiterating the secretary-general’s warning that peacekeepers should not be targeted.
“Attacks against peacekeepers violate international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime,” Dujarric said.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, typically one of the staunchest supporters of Israel among Western European leaders, spoke by phone with Netanyahu on Sunday and denounced the Israeli attacks as “unacceptable,” her government said.
Netanyahu said he told Meloni he was sorry for any harm suffered by UNIFIL personnel in Lebanon.
Italy has more than a thousand soldiers in the 10,000-man UNIFIL force, making it one of the largest contributors of personnel.
France and Spain, which each have almost 700 soldiers, .
Israel’s offensive in Lebanon over the past three weeks has uprooted 1.2 million Lebanese and dealt an unprecedented blow to the group by killing .
The Lebanese government says more than 2,100 people have been killed and 10,000 wounded in more than a year of fighting, mostly in recent weeks.
Israeli attacks on Gaza increase
Israeli military operations in northern Gaza have also intensified, with Palestinian authorities saying hundreds of people have been killed in the past 10 days.
On Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed four people and wounded dozens more when it hit the tents of displaced Palestinians inside the Al-Aqsa hospital in the central Gaza Strip town of Deir Al-Balah, where a million people were taking shelter, doctors said.
Israeli tank shelling killed at least 22 Palestinians at a school housing displaced families in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, medics said.
Hours earlier, an Israeli airstrike killed five children in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA and Hamas media reported that the children were playing near a bar when they were killed by a missile fired from an Israeli drone.
