Israeli forces kill 2 Lebanese soldiers and injure 2 UN peacekeepers in new, separate strikes

BEIRUT — (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed two Lebanese soldiers and wounded three others on Friday, Lebanon's military said, just hours after Israeli troops fired on the headquarters of United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, injuring two peacekeepers for the second time in as many days.

The incidents entangling both Lebanon's official army — which has largely stayed on the sidelines of the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants — and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon has raised alarm as Israel broadens its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across the country and a ground invasion at the border.

In central Beirut on Friday, rescue workers were combing through the rubble of a collapsed building, searching for survivors of an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens in the Lebanese capital the night before.

Since Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in support of Hamas and the Palestinians in Gaza, drawing Israeli retaliatory airstrikes, more than 2,229 Lebanese — including Hezbollah fighters, civilians and medical personnel — have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry. That includes 60 people killed and 168 wounded by Israeli airstrikes in the past 24 hours alone, the ministry said.

Hezbollah attacks have killed 29 civilians as well as 39 Israeli soldiers, both in northern Israel since October 2023 and in southern Lebanon since Sept. 30, when Israel launched its ground invasion.

On Friday, the Lebanese army said an Israeli airstrike hit a building near a military checkpoint in the southern Bint Jbeil province. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Lebanon’s army is not a party to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — after Israel launched its ground invasion on Sept. 30, Lebanese soldiers withdrew some 5 kilometers (3 miles) from their observation posts along the border.

The only direct clash between the two national armies occurred on Oct. 3, when Israeli tank fire hit a Lebanese army post also in the area of Bint Jbeil, killing a soldier and prompting Lebanese soldiers to return fire.

Both Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers are deployed in southern Lebanon to enforce the U.N. resolution that helped end a bloody monthlong 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said explosions struck near an observation tower at its headquarters in Lebanon’s southern town of Naqoura. One of the injured peacekeepers was hospitalized in the nearby city of Tyre while the other received medical care on site, it said.

Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry identified the two injured as Sri Lankan in a statement condemning the attack. France, which also contributes troops to the international force, said one of the peacekeepers was in critical condition.

The Israeli military said that soldiers operating in southern Lebanon identified a threat and responded with fire, ultimately hitting a UNIFIL post and injuring the two peacekeepers. The army said an initial review found that the intended target of Israeli fire was located some 50 meters from the UNIFIL position.

The U.N. force said it sent reinforcements to the area following an earlier incident Friday in which an Israeli army bulldozer hit the perimeter of a separate UNIFIL position while Israeli tanks moved nearby.

The report came just a day after Israeli tank fire hit the same UNIFIL headquarters, injuring two Indonesian peacekeepers and drawing sharp international criticism. UNIFIL said Israeli soldiers had attacked a bunker at a base where peacekeepers were sheltering, damaging vehicles and a communication system.

Condemnation of the Israeli attacks continued on Friday, with the French foreign ministry accusing Israel of deliberately firing at peacekeepers and summoning the Israeli ambassador in protest.

In a call with his Israeli counterpart, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stressed the importance of ensuring the safety of UNIFIL forces and urged Israel to “pivot from military operations to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible," the Pentagon said.

Israel has warned peacekeepers to leave positions near where it said Hezbollah militants have launched rockets into northern Israel over the past year of cross-border attacks. Following Thursday's attack, the U.N. peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said 300 peacekeepers in frontline positions on southern Lebanon’s border were temporarily moved to larger bases.

Lacroix said peacekeepers wouldn't conduct patrols due to ongoing air and ground attacks but would remain in their positions.

UNIFIL, which has more than 10,000 peacekeepers from dozens of countries, was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel's 1978 invasion. The United Nations expanded its mission following the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to patrol a buffer zone set up along the border.

Israel accuses Hezbollah of establishing militant infrastructure along the border in violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war.

In Beirut’s central Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood, civil defense workers dug through concrete and twisted metal from a three-story building brought down by the deadliest Israeli air raid on Beirut in the last year of war.

Thursday's Israeli airstrikes hit two residential buildings in neighborhoods that have swelled with displaced people fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere in the country.

In an adjacent building that was badly damaged, Ahmad al-Khatib stood in the apartment of his in-laws where he, his wife, Marwa Hamdan, and their 2 ½-year-old daughter, Ayla, suffered injuries from the blasts. He had just picked up his wife from work and she was performing the evening Muslim prayers at home when the explosions shook the neighborhood.

“The world suddenly turned upside down,” said the 42-year-old, tears running down his cheeks. He pulled his daughter out from under the debris of a wall that collapsed in a bedroom. Al-Khatib, who works for the postal service, said he found the force of the explosion had thrown his wife against a wall and a piece of metal had hit her in the head. His wife remains in the ICU at a Beirut hospital.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel and Israeli media said the strikes aimed to kill Wafiq Safa, a top security official with the group, but reported he was not in either targeted building at the time. The Israeli military had no comment on the reports.

Another resident, Mohammed Tarhani, said he had moved in with his brother in Burj Abi Haidar after fleeing around southern Lebanon to escape airstrikes the past weeks. His children were out on the veranda, and he was in the living room when the strike hit.

“We rushed out to look for the children,” he said. “Where is one supposed to go now?”

Meanwhile Hezbollah has expanded its rocket fire to more populated areas deeper inside Israel and kept up the rocket fire throughout the day on Friday. While disrupting life for Israelis, most of Hezbollah’s barrages have not caused casualties.

But early Friday, an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon killed a man from Thailand working on a farm in northern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week warned the Lebanese public that they would suffer the same destruction that Israel’s campaign against Hamas has inflicted on Gaza since the militant group’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel unless they take action against Hezbollah.

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