United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have reported another Israeli assault on their positions as ground and air attacks on Lebanon continue to claim lives.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Friday that two Israeli military excavators and one bulldozer had destroyed part of a fence and a concrete structure at a UN base in Ras Naqoura a day earlier.
The Israeli military denied any activity after UN forces contacted it to protest, despite UNIFIL publishing footage of the incident online.
The Israeli military’s “deliberate and direct destruction of clearly identifiable UNIFIL property is a flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701”, UNIFIL said, referring to the UN Security Council resolution aimed at ending the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Since September 30, Israel has repeatedly demanded that UN peacekeepers vacate their internationally mandated premises so it can more freely advance with its ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
The peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon has been targeted 40 times since then, UNIFIL’s deputy spokesperson Kandice Ardiel told Al Jazeera on Friday.
Ardiel said eight of those attacks were confirmed to have originated from the Israeli army. Peacekeepers have been wounded and property destroyed in previous attacks.
Israel also requested that UNIFIL evacuate 29 sites near the Blue Line, the UN-delineated line of withdrawal between Israel and Lebanon, Ardiel said. Earlier, UNIFIL said Israeli forces have been destroying and removing blue barrels that mark the Blue Line.
“Yesterday’s incident, like seven other similar incidents, is not a matter of peacekeepers getting caught in the crossfire, but of deliberate and direct actions” by the Israeli military, UNIFIL added.
UNIFIL convoys ‘at risk’
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday said the bloc condemns an “incident which put at risk an UNIFIL convoy and left several peacekeepers wounded” after six Malaysian peacekeepers were injured on Thursday by an Israeli drone strike that killed three Lebanese people in a car nearby.
Borrell’s statement did not directly name Israel and said “all parties must ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and allow them to carry out their vital mission under UNIFIL’s mandate”.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military continues to push ahead with its ground operation in southern Lebanon and launch air strikes across the country as Hezbollah fires rockets and launches drones into Israel.
At least three people were killed and more than 30 wounded in one of the latest Israeli attacks on Lebanon that struck two buildings in the ancient city of Tyre on Friday night.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health announced that at least 15 people were killed and 69 wounded on Thursday as a result of Israeli strikes.
Since October last year, at least 3,117 people have been killed and 13,888 wounded by Israeli attacks in Lebanon, the ministry said. Among them, 617 are women and 192 children.
The casualties include 180 health workers. The ministry said hospitals have been attacked 65 times.
Israeli attacks are ongoing across the Gaza Strip as well, where more than 43,000 people have been killed since October last year, nearly 70 percent of them children and women, according to the UN. This is while famine is looming in northern Gaza, which has been under siege for more than a month.