Israeli forces fire at UN position in south Lebanon

Israeli forces fired at a watchtower used by UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon yesterday, injuring two, a UN source said, the third day in a row peacekeepers have reported Israeli fire at their positions as Israel wages war on Hezbollah.
A separate Israeli strike late on Thursday in the heart of Beirut killed 22 people and injured more than 100. The target was a senior Hezbollah official – Wafiq Safa – who survived, according to three security sources.
In northern Israel, a Thai worker was killed when Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile at a farming area, the national ambulance service said. The Israeli air force killed a Hezbollah commander responsible for attacks with anti-tank missiles into the area of Ramot Naftali in northern Israel, the military said.
Hezbollah, however, issued no immediate comment on that claim.
The UN source said the UNIFIL peacekeeper tower which came under Israeli fire yesterday is located at the force’s main base in Naqoura. Israeli forces yesterday also breached the perimeter of another UNIFIL position which they had fired at on Thursday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, France and UK condemned the Israeli attacks that wounded the UN personnel.
In New York on Thursday, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said Israel recommends UNIFIL relocate 5 km (3 miles) north “to avoid danger as fighting intensifies”. Israel’s military said in a statement on Thursday that its troops operated in the Naqoura area, “next to a UNIFIL base.”
UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the Security Council on Thursday that the safety of more than 10,400 UN peacekeepers in Lebanon is “increasingly in jeopardy” and operations have virtually halted since late September.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah is preparing for a long war of attrition in south Lebanon, with a new military command directing rocket fire and the ground conflict, two sources familiar with its operations said.
The UN human rights office said yesterday that over 100 medics and emergency workers had been killed in Lebanon since a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began a year ago.
Israel’s offensive has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon in the last few weeks. The Middle East remains on high alert for further escalation in the region, awaiting Israel’s response to an Iranian missile strike on October 1.