UNIFIL BLOG: An Israeli tank opened fire on one of our observation posts

Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour today accused Israel of besieging, bombing and starving 400.000 Palestinians in northern Gaza as part of its all-out war against the Palestinian people.

At the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on the escalation of the humanitarian crisis, Mansur said that these are crimes and genocide, and that they must be stopped immediately.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dani Danon, claimed that his country's humanitarian efforts were "as comprehensive as ever" and criticized the UN Security Council for focusing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza while Israeli civilians, he said, "are being targeted every day by those who seek our destruction."

He also said that Israel has delivered more than one million tons of aid, including 700.000 tons of food to Gaza since the start of the military operation after Hamas's surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Danon assessed that the real problem is Hamas "which hijacked the aid for its own purposes".

"As long as Hamas remains in power, it exploits every opportunity to gain a foothold, while its people suffer," Danon said, adding that this makes it difficult for aid to reach those it is intended for.

He, however, maintains that Israel is committed to working with its partners to deliver aid even under these dangerous and morally unacceptable conditions.

The Palestinian ambassador appealed to the UNSC to pressure Israel to stop killing, agree to an immediate ceasefire, allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians and plan a path to an independent state and peace.

(BETA)

The UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) announced today that an Israeli tank opened fire on one of their observation posts in southern Lebanon where the peacekeepers are deployed.

"Members of the peacekeeping forces positioned near Kfar Kila noticed that an Israeli Merkava tank opened fire on their observation post," France Press reported.

Two cameras were destroyed and the tower was damaged, UNIFIL said in a statement, condemning the repeated "direct and obviously deliberate fire on one of its positions".

Israel has called on UNIFIL to leave its positions in southern Lebanon due to the Israeli ground offensive aimed at eliminating the threat posed by Hezbollah to northern Israeli settlements, Israeli media reports.

The European Union (EU) and the Cooperation Council of Arab States have condemned attacks on United Nations (UN) missions, expressing grave concern over recent Israeli attacks on UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

"We are extremely concerned by the dangerous escalation in Lebanon, we confirm our support for the Lebanese people," the EU and the Arab Cooperation Council said in a joint statement after their first summit held today in Brussels.

The EU and the Council for the Cooperation of Arab States have expressed concern over recent events in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, as well as Israeli operations in those locations.

They also condemned the violence of extremist settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Anadolia reports.

The statement called for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2735, "including an immediate, complete and total ceasefire, the release of hostages, the exchange of Palestinian prisoners, as well as immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access to the civilian population."

The EU and the Council for the Cooperation of Arab States confirmed their commitment to a two-state solution for the Middle East, stressing that "actions that weaken the Palestinian Authority must stop."

The summit is co-chaired by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, as rotating president of the Council for the Cooperation of Arab States.

The Council for the Cooperation of Arab States consists of six states of the Persian Gulf - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

(MINE)

The unit for crisis situations announced tonight that in the past 24 hours, 27 people were killed and 185 wounded, according to data from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

A little earlier, it was announced that the death toll from Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh increased to 16 and that 52 were wounded.

The municipal building was hit in one blow during the meeting of the city council.

Mayor Ahmad Kahil was among the dead, said Huvaida Turk, governor of Nabatia province.

The crisis response unit recorded 138 airstrikes and shelling over the past day, mostly in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley in the east.

The number of Lebanese killed during the past year in the conflict between Israel and the extremist Hezbollah increased today to 2.377, and 11.109 people were wounded, the Ministry of Health announced.

In more than 1.000 centers, including educational institutions, 109.698 people took refuge, of which 43.302 families were displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Of those shelters, 885 have been filled.

Fighting in Lebanon has forced 1,2 million people from their homes, including more than 400.000 children, a UN children's agency official said.

(BETA)

UN humanitarian official Joyce Msaya today accused Israel of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, and that there is hardly any food left in the north where the Israeli offensive is underway.

Msaja told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that food was not delivered to northern Gaza from October 2 to 15, when only smaller quantities were allowed to be delivered.

"Basic survival supplies are running out. There is now barely any food left to distribute and most bakeries will be forced to close in the next few days without additional fuel," she said.

Across Gaza, less than one third of the 286 humanitarian missions were enabled to carry out their activities without major incidents in coordination with the Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October.

The humanitarian official assessed that the level of suffering and reality in Gaza is brutal and worsens every day as Israeli bombs fall, fierce fighting continues and "basic supplies for human survival and humanitarian aid are blocked at every step".

Msaja appealed to all members of the Security Council to ensure respect for humanitarian law, which requires that civilians be protected and receive supplies to meet basic needs wherever they are.

(BETA)

The risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is "very high", the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, after a case of this acute and potentially fatal infection was discovered in the war-torn country, reports AFP.

At particular risk are the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced since Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah.

"If the cholera epidemic ... spreads among newly displaced people, it could spread rapidly," Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, told reporters at an online press conference.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that a case of cholera was confirmed in a Lebanese citizen who went to the hospital on Monday. The patient, from Amunieh in northern Lebanon, had no travel history, the ministry said.

Lebanon suffered its first cholera outbreak in 30 years between 2022 and 2023, mainly in the north of the country. The disease, which causes diarrhea, vomiting and muscle cramps, is usually caused by consuming food or water contaminated with the bacteria, according to a WHO statement.

The UN health agency has been warning for months that the disease could re-emerge due to "deteriorating water supply and sanitation conditions" among the displaced and their hosts, Abubakar said.

In addition to warning of the risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon after the case was identified, the WHO called on Israel to provide the necessary conditions to complete vaccination of children in Gaza against polio, after more than 150.000 children were vaccinated with the second dose needed.

Despite continued Israeli military operations in the area, the second round of the polio vaccination campaign, which aims to reach more than 590.000 children under the age of 10, began on Monday.

Hezbollah said today that it fired rockets at the northern Israeli city of Safed, the third such attack in 24 hours, which the Lebanese armed group described as a response to Israeli attacks, reports AFP.

The United States has told Israel that it opposes almost daily attacks in densely populated Beirut and that it is essential that Israeli operations are conducted in a way that does not endanger civilian lives, Reuters reports.

Spokesperson Karina Jean-Pierre's comments at the press conference come as attacks continue in Beirut. The State Department announced yesterday that it opposes these attacks.

An Israeli attack on a municipal building in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiya earlier today killed 16 people and wounded 52, Lebanon's health ministry said, giving the final toll.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati earlier condemned the deadly Israeli attacks, saying they deliberately targeted a meeting of municipal officials.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for the protection of health facilities in Lebanon, where Israel has stepped up its military campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, reports AFP.

"WHO calls for an end to attacks on health facilities," the UN agency said in a statement, adding that heavy bombardment "is forcing an increasing number of health facilities to close, especially in southern Lebanon."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sent a team of surgeons to the Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut to treat patients wounded in the conflict with Israel, the Guardian reports.

Many patients have been evacuated from hospitals in southern Lebanon after Israeli airstrikes intensified in the war against extremist Hezbollah.

About 1,2 million people fled south and east Lebanon.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Lebanon, Simona Kasabyanka-Eshliman, said today that the health care system is overloaded in the country due to the large influx of wounded patients.

"The fact that we don't know how this conflict will develop and what will happen is very difficult for us," she told The Associated Press.

Earlier this month, the ICRC delivered medical supplies to around 2.000 critically ill patients in more than ten hospitals in Lebanon.

At least 2.350 people have been killed and more than 10.900 wounded since the conflict with Israel began a year ago, with the most casualties since late September, Lebanese authorities say.

The Israeli army claims to have killed another Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, AP reports.

The military said Jalal Mustafa Hariri, Hezbollah's commander for the Qana area, was killed in the attack along with other Hezbollah militants.

So far there has been no confirmation from Hezbollah, although Lebanese authorities say 15 civilians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the city.

The Israeli military claims that Hariri was responsible for planning and carrying out a large number of attacks against Israel.

Israel has killed several Hezbollah officials since the start of the conflict, including the militant group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Abbas Aragchi, said today that the new sanctions of the West represent a "hostile act" for his country.

According to him, they will not contribute to the resolution of regional tensions, reports Iranian state media. "We consider the new Western sanctions against Iran to be a hostile act and will not contribute to improving the current situation," Aragchi said during his visit to Amman, according to the Iranian news agency Irna.

The United States is monitoring the situation to make sure that Israel's actions on the ground show that it does not have a "starvation policy" in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at today's meeting of the UN Security Council, Reuters reports. .

She told the Council that such a policy would be "horrendous and unacceptable, and would have implications under international law and US law."

"The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essentials will not be withheld, and we will be watching to see that Israel's actions on the ground match this statement," Thomas-Greenfield said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said today that the activities of UN peacekeepers in the south of Lebanon, near the Israeli border, are of "great importance" and that they could play a key role when the war against Hezbollah ends.

"Israel attaches great importance to the activities of UNIFIL (the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon) and has no intention of harming that organization, nor its personnel," Katz said in a statement on Platform X.

He added that "Israel considers UNIFIL to have an important role in the 'day after' war against Hezbollah."

In recent days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has caused the wrath of European allies by insisting that UNIFIL leave its positions in southern Lebanon in order not to be drawn into the exchange of fire between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, according to Israeli media.

The Ministry of the Armed Forces of France announced today that the 16 EU countries whose soldiers are in the UN Interim Force in Lebanon will continue to be committed to those forces.

After the video conference of the representatives of those countries, it was stated that "UNIFIL plays a key role within the mandate entrusted to it by the UN Security Council as an impartial observer force".

The video conference was convened at the initiative of the Minister of Defense of France and Italy after the wounding of five Indonesian and one member of the peacekeeping forces from Sri Lanka during the operations of the Israeli army in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah, France Press reported.

The ministers expressed deep concern about the escalation along the "Blue Line" - the border between Israel and Lebanon and "condemned the intimidation, threats and attacks" on the UN "blue helmets".

The participants called for strict compliance with Resolution 1701 of the UN Security Council and confirmed the role of UNIFIL in supporting de-escalation and as a channel for communication between the parties.

It was assessed that the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon must be restored and respected.

Based on that resolution, only the Lebanese army and peacekeepers can be deployed in southern Lebanon.

The UN has decided that UNIFIL will remain in all of its positions despite Israel's calls, the head of the UN peacekeeping force, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said on Monday.

UNIFIL has about 10.000 members.

Israel will not stop fighting the now-weakened Hezbollah until it is able to safely return its citizens to their homes near the Lebanese border, and any truce talks will be conducted "under fire," Defense Minister Yoav Galant said, according to Reuters.

"Hezbollah is in big trouble. We will only conduct negotiations under fire, I said that on the first day, I said it in Gaza and now I say it here," Galant said near the border, according to a statement from his office.

Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops "at close range" in southern Lebanon, according to an AFP report.

The Iran-backed armed group said the militants were engaged in "constant and violent clashes with Israeli enemy forces near the village of Al Kauzah at close range, using different types of machine guns," it said.

In a tweet about an hour ago, the Israeli military (IDF) said it had "eliminated dozens of Hezbollah terrorists" in targeted operations in southern Lebanon.

The United States has imposed sanctions on what it describes as a Lebanese sanctions-busting network that funnels millions of dollars to Hezbollah, Reuters reports.

The operation targeted three individuals linked to Hezbollah's financial unit and four companies based in Lebanon that were registered to conceal ties to the militant group, the US Treasury Department said in a statement.

The US also imposed sanctions on three people involved in the production and sale of an amphetamine known as captagon. Most of the world's captagon production comes from Syria, with smaller production in neighboring Lebanon. Western governments estimate that the illegal trade in these pills brings billions of dollars to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and his allies, including Hezbollah.

AP reports new Israeli attacks in Lebanon this afternoon.

Israeli warplanes hit a two-story building in Yamuna, in the Bekaa Valley, killing two people, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency. The victims were one woman and one displaced person, according to the report.

Two people were killed and nine were injured in a separate airstrike on the Rajak-Balbek highway, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Several Lebanese soldiers were wounded when the Israeli Air Force fired near their military vehicle, the news agency reports.

An Israeli airstrike on Dwyr, near Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, destroyed shops and apartments, the report said. It is not clear if there were any casualties.

Two Israeli ministers - Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich - who were threatened with sanctions by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, said that these threats will not influence them to change their positions, reports Reuters.

"I am not afraid, and I will continue to act solely according to Israel's highest national interests," Ben-Gvir said in a statement, while Smotrich said, "No threat will prevent me from doing the right and moral thing for the citizens of Israel."

Six people were killed and 43 injured in Israeli airstrikes on a municipal building in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, according to data from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

The United States has warned Israel that it may stop supplying weapons if the humanitarian situation in Gaza does not improve.

This is not the first time that Israel's main ally has threatened to cut off supplies. In May, US President Joe Biden said he would suspend some arms shipments to Israel if there was a major invasion of the southern city of Rafah. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued the campaign, and American weapons continued to arrive.

The United States is the largest supplier of weapons to Israel, according to CNN. During 2023, 69% of Israel's arms imports came from the US, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report on international arms transfers. Germany was the second largest supplier with 30%, while Italy was in third place with 0,9%. The United Kingdom, France and Spain contributed less.