Israel’s military said Hezbollah drones killed four soldiers at one of its northern bases on Sunday, as it expanded its bombardment of Lebanon and troops were fighting militants across the border.
The attack on a military training camp in Binyamina, near Haifa, is the deadliest attack on an Israeli base since September 23, when Israel increased its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Emergency services reported more than 60 injuries.
Meanwhile, officials in Gaza said the death toll from an Israeli attack on a school being used as a shelter for displaced people on Sunday had risen to 15, including entire families.
And as fighting broke out between Israel and Hezbollah forces in the south of Lebanon, UN peacekeepers said they were again in the firing line.
He said Israeli troops “forcibly” entered UN positions with two tanks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on them to withdraw from the area.
Israel’s military said a tank had rammed into a UN post during the shooting.
Hezbollah promises even worse
Iran-backed Hezbollah said late Sunday it launched “a squad of attack drones” at the Binyamina camp, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the major city of Haifa.
The attack was in response to Israeli attacks, including airstrikes on Thursday that Lebanon’s health ministry said had killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.
In a later statement, Hezbollah warned Israel that “what it saw today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our great and beloved people”.
United Hatzalah, an Israeli volunteer rescue service, said its teams in Binyamina assisted “more than 60 injured people” with injuries ranging from mild to serious.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones at Israel for more than a year in support of Hamas militants in Gaza.
However, since late September, its attacks have reached further into the country.
Israel’s sophisticated air defenses intercepted most of the projectiles, some of which caused casualties due to strikes or falling debris.
Protect this ‘blessed land’
Israel’s recent attacks have focused on southern Beirut and areas beyond Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds in Lebanon’s south and east.
Israel said its air forces hit “Hezbollah launchers, anti-tank missile positions, weapons storage facilities” and other targets, while its troops on the ground destroyed “dozens of combat aircraft”.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli forces had “increased their attacks” on several border villages in southern Lebanon with “continuous air strikes”.
It later reported that an Israeli strike on Mefadoun, near Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, killed five people and wounded another.
Hezbollah said its forces clashed several times with Israeli troops who tried to “infiltrate” villages near the border.
Before the drone attack it said it had fired rockets at “a base in southern Haifa”.
The group later broadcast an audio recording of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on fighters to “defend this holy and blessed land and this honorable people.”
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in south Beirut on 27 September, and several other senior commanders of the movement have also been killed.
The Israeli military said about 115 projectiles fired by Hezbollah had hit Israeli territory by Sunday afternoon.
Israel’s military said a Hezbollah fighter was captured emerging from a tunnel in southern Lebanon on Sunday, the first such announcement since the start of the ground offensive.
‘Shocking violation’
UN peacekeepers accused Israeli soldiers of breaking down a gate and entering one of their positions before dawn Sunday in southern Lebanon, the latest of several incidents reported by the UNIFIL mission since Thursday.
So far five Blue Helmets have been injured, which is being condemned internationally.
“Two IDF (Israeli Army) Merkava tanks destroyed the main gate of the position in the Ramiya area and forcibly entered the position”, before leaving 45 minutes later, UNIFIL said.
The Israeli military later said that a tank “drove several meters into a UNIFIL post” during the “fire” and while attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers.
Earlier on Sunday, Netanyahu called on the United Nations to remove peacekeepers in southern Lebanon from harm’s way after the mission rejected his request to step down.
The presence of peacekeepers had “the effect of providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists,” Netanyahu said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Sunday that attacks against peacekeepers “may constitute war crimes”.
UNIFIL, with about 9,500 troops, is in southern Lebanon under long-standing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which said only the Lebanese Army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed to south Lebanon.
Three Lebanese soldiers were wounded on Sunday when Israeli forces fired on military vehicles in the Marjayoun area, the country’s military said.
French President Emmanuel Macron in a phone call with Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian appealed to Iran to support “general de-escalation” in Lebanon and Gaza, his office said.
America is sending more air defense
Gaza’s civil defense agency said at least 15 people were killed and dozens wounded Sunday when Israeli shelling hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
Agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said, “There was a massive bombardment of Israeli artillery on the school, resulting in the initial death of 15 martyrs, including children, women and entire families, and the wounding of 50.”
Israel’s military said it was “looking into the reports”.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said late Sunday that a WHO-Red Cross operation had managed to resupply two hospitals in northern Gaza.
“WHO and partners finally managed to reach Kamal Adwan and Al-Sahaba hospitals yesterday after 9 attempts last week,” he posted on Twitter.
Hamas launched the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023, with its deadliest attack on Israel to date, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
This number also includes hostages who died in captivity.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 42,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since the Israeli military campaign began. The United Nations considers these figures reliable.
More than 1,300 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures including Saturday’s.
The number exceeds Lebanon’s total of 1,200 – mostly civilians – killed in the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, when 160 people, mostly soldiers, were killed in Israel.
The Pentagon said it would deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system and its own US military contingent to Israel to help defend its ally against a possible Iranian attack.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
