UN peacekeepers in Lebanon warned Saturday against a “catastrophic” regional conflict as Israeli forces battled Hezbollah and Hamas militants on two fronts, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
Israel has faced a fierce diplomatic backlash over incidents in south Lebanon that saw five Blue Helmets injured.
On Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said Israeli air strikes on two villages located near the capital Beirut killed nine people. Official media later reported an Israeli strike targeted a market in Nabatiyeh, an important southern city.
Israel had earlier told residents of south Lebanon not to return home, as its troops fought Hezbollah militants in a war that has killed more than 1,200 people since September 23, and forced more than a million others to flee their homes according to Lebanese authorities.
“For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice… Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.
Hezbollah said Saturday it launched missiles across the border into northern Israel, where air raid sirens sounded and the military said it had intercepted a projectile.
Israel’s military said Hezbollah fired about 320 projectiles into Israel over the weekend of Yom Kippur, which ended at nightfall.
It also said roughly 280 “terror targets” were attacked in Lebanon and Gaza over the same time period.
For the third time, it declared a “closed military area” along the Lebanese border in northern Israel, this time including Shtula and nearby areas.
Such measures since late September have preceded ground operations inside Lebanon.
In an interview with AFP, UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said he feared an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah could soon spiral out of control “into a regional conflict with catastrophic impact for everyone”.
There was “no military solution” to the conflict, Tenenti said.
“The situation needs to be discussed at the political and diplomatic level.”
The UN force said five peacekeepers have been injured by fighting in south Lebanon in two days, and Tenenti said “a lot of damage” had been caused to its posts there.
Around Israel, markets were closed and public transport halted as observant Jews fasted and prayed on Yom Kippur.
After the holiday, attention is likely to turn again to Israel’s promised retaliation against Iran, which launched around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.
Israel began pounding Gaza shortly after suffering its worst ever attacks from Iran-backed Hamas militants on October 7 last year, and it launched a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on September 30, after intensifying air strikes on targets there.
– ‘Deliberately targeted’ –
On Friday, Israel faced criticism from the UN, its Western allies and others over what it said was a “hit” on a UN peacekeeping position in Lebanon.
Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were hurt in the second such incident in two days, UNIFIL said Friday.
Israel’s military said soldiers had responded to “an immediate threat” around 50 metres (yards) from the UNIFIL base in Naqura, and has pledged to carry out a “thorough review”.
The Irish military’s chief of staff, Sean Clancy, said it was “not an accidental act”, and French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed the peacekeepers had been “deliberately targeted”.
Both countries are troop contributors to UNIFIL.
Efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire”.
Lebanon’s military said Friday an Israeli strike in south Lebanon killed two of its soldiers.
In a show of support for Iran’s ally Hezbollah, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, visited the site Saturday of a deadly Israeli strike earlier this week.
A source close to Hezbollah said the strike had targeted Hezbollah’s security chief Wafiq Safa, but neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed he was the target.
Ghalibaf’s visit, a signal of Tehran’s defiance, comes after Israel vowed to respond to Iran’s second-ever direct attack.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has vowed that the response will be “deadly, precise and surprising”.
The United States is pushing for a “proportionate” response that would not tip the region into a wider war, with President Joe Biden urging Israel to avoid striking Iranian nuclear facilities or energy infrastructure.
– Gaza deaths –
Hezbollah, armed and financed by Iran, began firing on Israel in support of Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has wrought devastation. The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says 42,175 people, a majority civilians, have been killed.
Israeli operations in Gaza continue, with the army besieging an area around Jabalia in the north, causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Adraee, the Israeli military spokesman, posted another evacuation warning on X Saturday for an area near Jabalia, saying it was “considered a dangerous combat zone”.
“They tell us to go south, but we won’t go because of the dangers and the army is shooting at people there,” 27-year-old Sami Asliya told AFP.
“There is no safe place, neither in the south nor in the north — everyone is at risk of death.”
On Friday, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 30 people killed in Israeli strikes in the area, including on schools sheltering displaced people.
An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy shelling, explosions and gunfire Saturday further south in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood.
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