As Israeli strikes pounded central Beirut on Thursday, a senior Hezbollah official escaped an assassination attempt, and the UN reported that its peacekeeping headquarters in Southern Lebanon had been targeted.
The Lebanon Health Ministry reported that Israeli airstrikes on central Beirut killed 22 people and injured dozens more, escalating Israel’s bloody conflict with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
The air raid on central Beirut, the deadliest in more than a year of war, targeted two residential buildings in different neighborhoods. It collapsed one eight-story building and destroyed the lower floors of another.
Following the strikes, Hezbollah sources claimed that an attempt to kill Wafiq Safa, the group’s top security official, had failed. It stated that Safa had not entered either of the targeted buildings.
Earlier on Thursday, a Lebanese security source claimed that Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut targeted at least one senior official from Iran-backed Hezbollah.
UN Peacekeepers Strike
UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said in a statement that its headquarters and positions “have been repeatedly hit” by Israeli forces.
It stated that an Israeli tank “directly” fired on an observation tower at the force’s headquarters in Naqoura, Lebanon, and that soldiers attacked a bunker near where peacekeepers were sheltering, causing damage to vehicles and a communication system. It claimed that an Israeli drone was seen flying towards the bunker’s entrance.
The two UNIFIL troops wounded in the attacks and hospitalized are Indonesian, according to Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
Defense Minister Guido Crosetto of Italy, which has approximately 1,000 soldiers deployed as part of UNIFIL, went on to claim that Israel ‘deliberately targeted’ the UNIFIL base in southern Lebanon in strikes that “could constitute war crimes.”
The US responds to an attack on peacekeepers.
The incident in which an IDF Merkava tank fired its weapon at an observation tower at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura drew strong criticism from several countries, including their key ally, the United States.
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council stated, “We are deeply concerned about reports that Israeli forces fired on two positions and a tower used by UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.”
The Israeli military acknowledged opening fire on a UN base in southern Lebanon on Thursday, saying it had ordered peacekeepers to “remain in protected spaces.”
