UN, Israel clash on Lebanon Unifil base incident
JERUSALEM/NEW YORK—The United Nations said on Sunday Israeli tanks burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon amid clashes with Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.
The Unifil peacekeeping force said two Israeli Merkava tanks destroyed the main gate of a base and forcibly entered before dawn on Sunday morning. After the tanks left, shells exploded 100 meters 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 fired antitank 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,” the military’s international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
In a statement, the military said it used smoke screen to provide cover for the evacuation of the wounded soldiers but its actions posed no danger to the UN peacekeeping force.
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.”
“The IDF has requested this repeatedly and has met with repeated refusal, which has the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields.”
The Secretary General reiterated a warning that peacekeepers must not be targeted, he said.
War crime
“Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime,” Dujarric said.
Unifil has said previous Israeli attacks on a watchtower, cameras, communications equipment and lighting had limited its monitoring abilities. UN sources say they fear any violations of international law in the conflict will be impossible to monitor.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III in a call on Sunday with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, “reinforced the importance of Israel taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of Unifil forces and Lebanese Armed Forces,” according to a readout of the call.
Austin also pressed Gallant on the need for Israel “to pivot from military operations in Lebanon to a diplomatic pathway to provide security for civilians on both sides of the border as soon as feasible,” it said.
