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 camp in Binyamina, wounding 67.
The United Nations said Israeli tanks had burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, the latest accusation of Israeli violations and attacks denounced by its own allies.
The UNIFIL peacekeeping force said two Israeli Merkava tanks destroyed the main gate of a base and forcibly entered before dawn on Sunday morning (local time).
After the tanks left, shells exploded 100 metres away, releasing smoke which blew across the base and sickened UN personnel, it said in a statement.
In its version of events, the Israeli military said militants of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah had fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli troops, wounding 25 of them.
“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,” the military’s international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
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.
Netanyahu asks UN to ‘withdraw UNIFIL from combat zones’
The UN force said any deliberate attack on peacekeepers was a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
Earlier on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio 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.
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.
Hezbollah claims drone attack
On Sunday, Hezbollah said it attacked a camp of the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade camp in Binyamina in northern Israel with a “swarm of drones”.
Israel’s N12 News television said at least 67 people were wounded and the head of the ambulance service told N12 that four people were in critical condition.
