Middle East latest: 4 peacekeepers lightly injured as UN base is hit by rockets in south Lebanon
Rockets likely launched by Hezbollah or affiliated groups on Friday hit a United Nations peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon, the U.N. said.
Italy’s Defense Ministry said four Italian soldiers were slightly injured after two exploding rockets hit the U.N. mission base in Shama in southern Lebanon.
Earlier Friday, a spokesman for the mission known as UNIFIL, Andrea Tenenti, told The Associated Press they were monitoring “heavy clashes” between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters in different areas in south Lebanon, including the coastal town of Naqoura and the village of Chamaa to the northeast.
Several UNIFIL posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.
The fighting came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and a Hamas military leader, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
More than 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry said. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Israel has also launched airstrikes against Lebanon after the Hezbollah militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack last October. A full-blown war erupted in September after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.
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BEIRUT — Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs and the southern port city of Tyre on Friday, after the Israeli army issued several evacuation warnings saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites.
The strikes in Beirut came dangerously close to central Beirut and Christian neighborhoods. One strike hit a building housing a gym and medical and beauty clinics, located just meters (yards) from a Lebanese army base.
“What is there in the building to target? This attack they carried out on us in this building is a criminal and vile act,” resident Hassan Najdi told The Associated Press. “Because if their intention is targeting Hezbollah, this building has nothing to do with Hezbollah.”
Najdi said he purchased an apartment in the building last year but had not yet moved in. He allowed a displaced family to move in and urgently asked them to evacuate after receiving the Israeli warning.
The blasts sent plumes of smoke into the air and shattered glass in the vicinity. No casualties have been reported, but the strikes caused damage to nearby infrastructure and a key road connecting central Beirut to its southern suburbs.
“We remain steadfast,” said Ali Daher, an employee at a mall facing the targeted building. “Everything that is lost can be replaced, and whatever is destroyed can be rebuilt in (no time).”
In Tyre city, the Israeli military conducted multiple airstrikes after a series of warnings, claiming the targets belonged to Hezbollah’s Aziz unit, accusing it of firing projectiles into Israel.
The Israeli military carried out other airstrikes across Lebanon, many without warnings, as heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in villages along the Lebanon-Israel border intensified.
ROME — Italy said Friday it plans to discuss the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court over the Israel-Hamas war when it hosts Group of Seven foreign ministers next week.
Premier Giorgia Meloni insisted that one point remained clear for Italy: “There can be no equivalence between the responsibilities of the state of Israel and the terrorist organization of Hamas.”
Italy is a founding member of the court and hosted the 1998 Rome conference that gave birth to it. But Meloni’s right-wing government has been a strong supporter of Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, while also providing humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.
In a statement Friday, Meloni said Italy would study the reasonings behind the decision to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas’ military chief.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Italy respects the ICC and supports it. “But at the same time we are also convinced that the court must have a judicial role, and should not take up a political role.”
Tajani will host G7 foreign ministers Monday and Tuesday outside Rome for the final meeting of the Italian G7 presidency.
“As far as decisions are concerned, we will take them together with our allies,” Tajani said.
During the G7 meetings, “we will talk about this with my allies there, and we will see what to do next.”
Another member of the governing coalition, the outspoken Transport Minister Matteo Salvini was more defiant in supporting Israel. “If Netanyahu comes to Israel he will be welcomed,” Salvini was quoted by Italian media as saying.
ROME — Four Italian soldiers were slightly injured after two exploding rockets hit the United Nations' peacekeeping mission base on Friday in Shama in southern Lebanon, Italy's defense ministry said.
Initial information suggested that two rockets hit a bunker and a room of the mission base, damaging the surrounding infrastructure, the ministry said. Shattered glass hit the four soldiers.
The incident was the latest in which UN peacekeeping posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.
Defence Minister Guido Crosetto called Friday's attack “intolerable.” He said he will try to speak to the new Israeli Defense Minister to ask him “to avoid using the UNIFIL bases as a shield.”
Crosetto said the conditions of the four Italian soldiers “did not cause concern.” He reiterated that the Italian contingent remains in southern Lebanon “to offer a window of opportunity for peace and cannot become hostage to militia attacks.”
Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday said she learned about the new attack with “deep indignation and concern.”
Meloni reiterated that “such attacks are unacceptable,” renewing her appeal for the parties on the ground “to guarantee, at all times, the safety of UNIFIL soldiers and to collaborate to quickly identify those responsible.”
GENEVA — The World Health Organization says nearly half of the attacks on health care in Lebanon have been deadly since the Middle East conflict erupted in October last year, the highest such rate anywhere in the world.
The U.N. health agency says 65 out of 137, or 47%, of recorded “attacks on health care” in Lebanon over that time period have proven fatal to at least one person, and often many more.
WHO’s running global tally counts attacks, whether deliberate or not, that affect places like hospitals, clinics, medical transport, and warehouses for medical supplies, as well as medics, doctors, nurses and the patients they treat.
Nearly half of attacks on health care in Lebanon since last October and the majority of deaths occurred since an intensified Israeli military campaign began against Hezbollah militants in the country two months ago.
The health agency said 226 health workers and patients have been killed and 199 injured in Lebanon between Oct. 7, 2023 and this Monday.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s new defense minister said Friday that he would stop issuing warrants to arrest West Bank settlers or hold them without charge or trial — a largely symbolic move that rights groups said risks emboldening settler violence in the Israeli-occupied territory.
Israel Katz called the arrest warrants “severe” and said issuing them was “inappropriate” as Palestinian militant attacks on settlers in the territory grow more frequent. He said settlers could be “brought to justice” in other ways.
The move protects Israeli settlers from being held in “administrative detention,” a shadowy form of incarceration where people are held without charge or trial.
Settlers are rarely arrested in the West Bank, where settler violence against Palestinians has spiraled since the outbreak of the war Oct. 7.
Katz’s decision was celebrated by far-right coalition allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. National Security Minister and settler firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir applauded Katz and called the move a “correction of many years of mistreatment” and “justice for those who love the land.”
Since Oct. 7, 2023, violence toward Palestinians by Israeli settlers has soared to new heights, displacing at least 19 entire Palestinian communities, according to Israeli rights group Peace Now. In that time, attacks by Palestinian militants on settlers and within Israel have also grown more common.
An increasing number of Palestinians have been placed in administrative detention. Israel holds 3,443 administrative detainees in prison, according to data from the Israeli Prison Service, reported by rights group Hamoked. That figure stood around 1,200 just before the start of the war. The vast majority of them are Palestinian, with only a handful at any given time Israeli Jews, said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked.
“All of these detentions without charge or trial are illegitimate, but to declare that this measure will only be used against Palestinians...is to explicitly entrench another form of ethnic discrimination,” said Montell.
BERLIN — A German official has suggested that his country would be reluctant to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.
The ICC’s warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put Germany, a staunch ally of Israel, in an awkward position. The government said in a statement Friday that it is one of the ICC’s biggest supporters, but “at the same time, it is a consequence of German history that unique relations and a great responsibility connect us with Israel.”
The government said it takes note of the arrest warrants and that “we will examine conscientiously the domestic steps.” It said that any further steps would only be an issue if a visit by Netanyahu or Gallant were “foreseeable.”
Government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit was pressed repeatedly at a regular news conference on whether it would be conceivable to arrest an Israeli prime minister. He replied: "It’s hard for me to imagine that we would carry out arrests in Germany on this basis.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday refused to comment on the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others, saying that the court's rulings are “insignificant” for Russia, which doesn’t recognizes the court’s jurisdiction.
The ICC last year issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and a number of other top Russian officials, accusing them of war crimes in Ukraine. The Kremlin has brushed off the warrants, saying that in Moscow’s eyes they’re “null and void.”
Asked if the ICC warrants for Netanyahu and others can help resolve the tensions in the Middle East, Peskov said: “Well, in general, the actions of the ICC are unlikely to help anything. That’s the first thing. And secondly, we don’t see any point in commenting on this in any way, because for us these rulings are insignificant.”
DEIR AL-BALAH, The Gaza Strip — Large crowds of displaced people crammed themselves in front of a bakery in the Gaza Strip for the second day in a row, desperate to get their share of bread after bakeries closed for five days due to a flour shortage and the lack of aid.
“I am a 61-year-old man. This is the third day that I have come to Zadna Bakery and I still cannot get bread … I have children to feed,” said Majdi Yaghi, a displaced man from Gaza City.
The price of a small bag of pita bread increased to $16 by Friday, a stark increase from about 80 cents last month. A bag of pasta now costs $4 and a small bag of sugar costs nearly $14.
That has left many Palestinian families surviving on one meal a day and reliant on charitable kitchens to survive.
In Khan Younis, women and children lined up at the al-Dalu charitable kitchen for bulgur, the only food available at the makeshift charity.
One of the workers there, Anas al-Dalu, told the AP that they cook ten pots every day of either rice, beans, or bulgur. But that hardly fills the need for the thousands of people displaced in the area.
“The charity here is in a difficult situation. It is a drop in the ocean, and there is no aid or charities. There is nothing," said Nour Kanani, a displaced man from Khan Younis. “It is a crisis in every sense of the word. There is no flour, no charities, and no food.”
BEIRUT — Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hezbollah fighters on Friday in different areas in south Lebanon, including a coastal town that is home to the headquarters of U.N. peacekeepers.
A spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL told The Associated Press that they are monitoring “heavy clashes” in the coastal town of Naqoura and the village of Chamaa to the northeast.
UNIFIL’s headquarters are located in Naqoura in Lebanon’s southern edge close to the border with Israel.
“We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said. Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment.”
Several UNIFIL posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.
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