Israeli air strikes struck the heart of Beirut for the second time in less than two weeks, killing at least 22 people and sending panic across the Lebanese capital.
The attacks on Thursday night hit two separate locations close to Lebanon’s national museum and the French embassy, sending up plumes of smoke and wounding at least 117 people, according to Lebanese health authorities.
The strikes were at least 5km from Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been a focus of Israel’s bombardment as it has escalated its offensive against Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant movement, over the past two weeks.
Footage carried by Lebanese media at one of the locations showed a large fire blazing in the background, with rescue workers digging through an enormous mound of rubble. Photos and video from the second location showed one strike hit the lower half of a residential building.
This is the second time Israel has struck central Beirut in the past 10 days. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Lebanese state media reported that Israeli strikes continued in the country’s south on Thursday.
The strikes came after Israeli forces fired a tank shell at the UN peacekeepers’ headquarters in southern Lebanon on Thursday, the UN said, injuring two international troops.
The strike on a watchtower within the base in the village of Ras al-Naqoura was the third time in 24 hours that Israeli fire had struck border posts used by Unifil, the UN’s interim force in Lebanon, the peacekeepers said.
The incidents prompted an outcry from countries contributing to the peacekeeping force. Italy summoned Israel’s ambassador, while Rome’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, said the incidents “may constitute war crimes”. “This is not a mistake and not an accident,” he said.
The injured Unifil soldiers are Indonesian, the country’s foreign minister Retno Marsudi said. Indonesia contributes 1,231 soldiers to the peacekeeping force, the largest number of the 50 participating countries.
The minister condemned the attack in a speech at a summit in Laos on Friday, warning that the credibility of the UN Security Council was being undermined by what she said were “ongoing violations of international law without meaningful consequences”.
At the border Unifil’s headquarters and nearby posts have come under repeated fire since Israel stepped up its campaign against Iran-backed Hizbollah last month — battering Lebanon with thousands of air strikes, killing much of the group’s leadership and launching a ground invasion.
“Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and of Security Council resolution 1701,” Unifil said on Thursday, referring to the UN resolution that grants the force its mandate to patrol southern Lebanon.
Italy, which has more than 1,250 peacekeeping troops in Lebanon, said it had also complained to the UN. Unifil has not released the nationalities of the wounded troops, but Italy, Ireland and France said their personnel were not injured.
Crosetto said: “The hostile acts carried out and reiterated by Israeli forces [against one of the Unifil bases] could constitute war crimes and certainly represent very serious violations of the norms of international humanitarian law, not justified by any military necessity.”
Israel’s Rome embassy said its government would continue to make every effort not to target UN forces but it claimed that Hizbollah was trying to hide near Unifil bases and that Israel had already discovered tunnels and weapons depots near that area.
“Israel has recommended several times to the Italian Unifil military to withdraw part of their forces from the area for security reasons, but unfortunately the request has been rejected,” the diplomatic mission said.
France also expressed “deep concern” and said it was awaiting explanations from Israel.
Unifil said it was following up with Israel’s military on the issue.
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday said Hizbollah was operating in and near civilian areas in southern Lebanon, including areas near Unifil posts, and that it maintained routine communication with the UN force.
The IDF said: “This morning [Thursday], IDF troops operated in the area of Naqoura, next to a Unifil base. Accordingly, the IDF instructed the UN forces in the area to remain in protected spaces, following which the forces opened fire in the area.”
Last week Israel called on UN peacekeeping troops to withdraw from their posts along the Blue Line, the de facto border with Lebanon, as it pushed ahead with its ground invasion.
Ireland, which has 347 troops stationed in southern Lebanon as part of a joint battalion with Polish soldiers, rejected those calls, insisting it would not evacuate even as Israel intensified its air campaign.
Israeli forces and Hizbollah militants have clashed at several points along or near the informal border in recent days, including near the southern village of Labbouneh, where one of the UN’s border posts was struck on Thursday.
Unifil has also come under fire from Hizbollah in the past. In 2022, an Irish peacekeeper was killed and another seriously injured when their armoured patrol cars was attacked in a Hizbollah-controlled area.
On Thursday, Unifil said its bases and headquarters were facing “deliberate” fire from Israeli forces, suggesting they were targeted rather than being caught in the crossfire.
In one instance, IDF soldiers fired on a Unifil position in Labbouneh on Wednesday, the international force said, and the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering had been hit.
“An IDF drone was observed flying inside the UN position up to the bunker entrance,” it said, adding that IDF soldiers “deliberately fired at and disabled” the border post’s perimeter-monitoring cameras the day before.
In another incident, Unifil said Israeli soldiers had on Wednesday “deliberately fired” on and damaged the peacekeepers’ headquarters in Ras al-Naqoura — a building where regular meetings between Israel, Lebanon and Unifil were held before the war.
Unifil was established in 1978 and expanded following the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah. It has about 10,500 peacekeeping troops, with major contributing nations including France, Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia and Ghana.
Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, which began late last month, has swollen to four divisions of troops — amounting to as many as 20,000 soldiers at full strength — as the country’s conflict with Hizbollah has intensified.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 2,100 people over the past year and forced in excess of 1.2mn from their homes, mostly in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese authorities. They have also caused widespread destruction in southern Lebanon.
Israel has said its Lebanon offensive is aimed at securing its northern border area to allow about 60,000 Israelis to return to their homes, after a year of exchanging cross-border fire with Hizbollah.
The Lebanese group began firing rockets towards Israel in support of Gaza a day after the October 7 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
Additional reporting by Mehul Srivastava, Jude Webber in Dublin and Steff Chávez in Washington
Cartography by Steven Bernard and Cleve Jones
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