Lebanese PM calls for UN ceasefire resolution as Israeli strikes pound Beirut and Gaza

France summoned Israel's ambassador on Friday to seek an explanation after Israeli troops fired at positions held by UN peacekeepers, including at the Naqoura base in southern Lebanon, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"These attacks constitute serious violations of international law and must stop immediately," the ministry said.

France has about 700 troops as part of the UNIFIL mission. None of its troops has been wounded so far.

The ministry said that all sides in the conflict had an obligation to protect peacekeepers.

Dozens of Palestinians have been wounded by Israeli quadcopter fire at a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza's Jabalia refugee Camp, the Civil Defence said on Friday.

It said crews were transferring the wounded to a nearby hospital. 

Israel's military chief and the head of its Shin Ben security agency held a security assessment inside southern Lebanon on Thursday, the military said on Friday.

"We continue to operate against the enemy and will not stop until we ensure that we can safely return the residents (evacuated from the north), not just now, but with a future outlook," said Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi in a video of the gathering released by the military.

"If anyone considers rebuilding these villages again, they will know that it's not worth constructing terrorist infrastructure because the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will neutralize them again."

Ronen Bar, who heads the Shin Bet, said that "on a peaceful border, defense is on one side; on a wartime border, defense must be on both sides of the border with freedom of action."

A Thai agricultural worker was killed by an anti-tank missile fired into northern Israel, Israeli emergency services said on Friday, while the army confirmed that two civilians were injured in a strike from Lebanon.

"Following an anti-tank missile strike on farmland in Upper Galilee, (rescue workers) declared the death of a 27-year-old Thai foreign worker," according to a statement from emergency service provider Magen David Adom (MDA).

Thai nationals in Israel have been particularly hard hit since the start of the war with Hamas, with at least 39 killed as a result of the October 7 attack on southern Israel.

More than two dozen are believed to have been captured by militants during the attack.

During a brief November truce, 23 Thais were released from captivity.

The Israeli army said two Thai nationals had died in captivity in Gaza in May.

A campaign starting next week to give hundreds of thousands of children in war-stricken Gaza the necessary second dose of polio vaccine will be "more complicated" than the first round, the UN said on Friday.

The United Nations agencies for health and for children said they were gearing up to start providing follow-up doses to some 591,700 children under the age of 10 across Gaza from Monday.

That follows a first vaccination round implemented from September 1 to 12, which Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's representative for the Palestinian territories, hailed Friday as "a massive achievement".

The vaccination campaign began after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years was reported in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Like the last round, the upcoming campaign will take part in three phases, aided by localised "humanitarian pauses" in fighting: first in central Gaza, then in the south and finally in the hardest-to reach north of the territory.

Speaking via video-link from Jerusalem, Peeperkorn told reporters he had "confidence" in the hundreds of teams ready to roll out the second stage of the campaign.

But he acknowledged he was "concerned about the developments in the north", where Israel has dramatically escalated its operations and has issued a string of evacuation orders.

"We are concerned," agreed Jean Gough of UNICEF.

"The conditions on the ground are really more complicated this time," she told the briefing, also speaking from Jerusalem.

She emphasised the need to fully vaccinate at least 90 percent of children to ensure polio does not spread.

"It will be absolutely critical that not only the localised humanitarian pauses are respected in the north, but also that people are not forced to move from one area to another," she said.

The UK government on Friday condemned firing by Israeli forces on a United Nations peacekeeper base in Lebanon, urging all parties in the conflict to "comply with international law".

"We were appalled to hear those reports and it is vital that peacekeepers and civilians are protected," a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters.

The United Nations on Friday said it was "appalled" by inflammatory language surrounding the war between Israel and Hezbollah and asked leaders to end their "bellicose posturing".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week urged the Lebanese people to rise up against Hezbollah, or risk a similar fate to Hamas-run Gaza.

"We are appalled by sweeping inflammatory language on multiple sides," UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva.

"Recent language threatening Lebanese people as a whole and calling on them to either rise up against Hezbollah or face destruction like Gaza, risks being understood as encouraging or accepting violence directed against civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international law."

She also decried as "unacceptable" the "ongoing denigration of the UN, in particular UNRWA", the UN agency supporting nearly six million Palestinian refugees spread across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

"This kind of toxic rhetoric, from any source, must stop," she said.

United Nations officials voiced concerns on Friday that an Israeli offensive and evacuation orders in northern Gaza might affect the second phase of its polio vaccination campaign set to start next week.

In Gaza's north, the Israeli military has been pursuing an offensive in recent days, sending its troops into Jabalia, the largest of Gaza's eight historic refugee camps, and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.

"I am of course, concerned about the developments in the north, and specifically with these evacuation orders," Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, told reporters in Geneva, saying dozens of healthcare facilities across the Strip were under such orders by the Israeli military.

Jean Gough, a UNICEF special representative also voiced concern and described conditions as "more complicated" than in the first phase of the vaccination campaign last month. The first vaccinations are set to start in central Gaza on Monday, before moving to the south and then the north, she added.

At the same briefing, Peeperkorn said that three attempts by the UN health agency and partners to assist and evacuate patients from northern Gaza hospitals under evacuation orders have been thwarted this week.

"It's kind of unacceptable that we still struggle with what... should be routine humanitarian missions by now," he said, voicing deep concern about the affected patients. Fresh attempts will be made to reach them in the coming days, he added.

Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza said on Friday it was facing dire conditions due to severe shortages of fuel to power generators, after an intensification of Israeli incursions in the area.

The hospital in Beit Lahia has defied Israeli military orders to evacuate citing difficulties of critically-ill patients and new-born babies and has said it needs to continue serving the population.

It is calling on support from the international community to ensure it can keep operating.

Throughout the war, Israel has ordered dozens of hospitals and medical centres to evacuate and waged devastating attacks on hospital infrastructure, ambulances, and arrested health workers.

Situation at Kamal Adwan Hospital: The situation at the hospital is catastrophic. Due to fuel shortages and Israel’s restrictions on access to northern hospitals, the lives of many children in intensive care are at serious risk. The coming hours will be decisive for their… pic.twitter.com/55TiNrFAFZ

— Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) October 11, 2024

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday urged the United Nations to pass a resolution calling for an "immediate" ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

Mikati told reporters the foreign ministry would ask the UN Security Council to issue a resolution demanding a "full and immediate ceasefire" and that his government was committed to Resolution 1701 which was adopted in 2006 and called for the Lebanese army and peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in the south of the country.

Tehran will not hesitate to take "stronger defensive actions" if Israel retaliates for last week's missile attack by Tehran, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday.

Iran is "fully prepared to take stronger defensive actions, if necessary, in response to any further aggression, and will not hesitate to do so," Araqchi said in a letter to other foreign ministers, according to a ministry post on X.

Israel has repeatedly said it will respond to Iran's missile attack on Oct. 1, launched in retaliation for Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Gaza and the killing of a Hamas leader in Iran.

Araqchi said in his letter that Iran’s missile attack on Israel had been in accordance with its right to self defence under international law and followed much restraint as it sought a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said Israel will hit Iran in a way that will be "lethal, precise and surprising".

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Friday condemned Israeli forces firing on a peacekeeper base in Lebanon as a breach of international humanitarian law.

"I condemn the fact that there was a shooting against a UN premise, wounding two peacekeepers, which is a violation of international humanitarian law," the UN secretary general told reporters at a summit in Laos.

Lebanon's Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack Friday on a military base in north Israel's Haifa, a day after deadly strikes in Beirut and as the group battles Israeli forces on the border.

Hezbollah launched "an air attack with a group of explosive-laden drones" towards the "air defence command base" in Haifa, "responding to" Israeli attacks on "cities and villages and civilians", the Iran-backed group said in a statement.

More than 100 Europeans were evacuated from Lebanon on a Belgian military plane on Thursday evening, most of them from Belgium, the Netherlands and France, the government in Brussels said.

The aircraft, which landed at Melsbroek military base near the Belgian capital was carrying "58 Belgians and dependents, 41 Dutch citizens, 11 from France and one from Luxembourg, a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP on Friday.

Over the past week nearly 150 of the 1,800 or so Belgians living in Lebanon have benefited from assistance to return to Belgium, he said.

A first group left last week on two flights arranged by the Netherlands.

It included two Belgian journalists who were attacked and injured in Beirut while covering an Israeli bombardment of the city on the night of October 2 to 3.

"All the Belgians who wanted to leave have been able to do so. We are continuing to assess the situation," the spokesman said.

Lebanon's foreign ministry condemned an Israeli attack that it said wounded United Nations peacekeepers in the country's south, after Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported a new attack on Friday.

The ministry condemned "the targeting... carried out by the Israeli army" on the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, most recently "the bombing that targeted watchtowers and the main UNIFIL base in Ras Naqura, and on the Sri Lankan battalion's base, which led to a number of wounded", a statement said.

Lebanon's official National News Agency earlier Friday reported that "an enemy Merkava tank targeted one of the UNIFIL towers on the main road linking Tyre and Naqura... which wounded personnel from the Sri Lankan battalion."

Israeli forces fired at an observation post belonging to the UNIFIL peacekeeping force at its main base at Naqoura in southern Lebanon on Friday, wounding two people, a UN source said.

Israeli forces also breached the perimeter of another UNIFIL position they had fired at on Thursday, the source said. 

(Reuters)

Israeli army says it killed a leader of Islamic Jihad in the occupied West Bank in a strike on Tulkarm on Thursday.

In a statement the army said it killed Muhammed Abdullah, head of Islamic Jihad in Nur Shams.

Islamic Jihad is a smaller Sunni Palestinian political and armed group operating mainly in West Bank towns of Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin.

Israel has been raiding West Bank towns for months waging hours long clashes with local armed militants and causing widespread destruction.

Israeli army says it struck a drone which crossed into Israeli airspace near Ashkelon in the north of the country. It did not say where the drone came from but follows a drone infiltration near Eilat, claimed by the Iraq- Islamic Resistance Groups.

Sirens have been sounding in upper Galilee in northern Israel where some rockets from Lebanon were intercepted, according to reports.

The times of Israel reported that two people were wounded by anti-tank missile fire in the Israeli town of Kibbutz Yir’on on the border with Lebanon. Yiron is opposite Maroun el Ras which has been the site of clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters.

Israeli media reported that a 27 year old Thai national was killed and one other injured by the anti-tank missile attack on Kibbutz Yir’on, citing the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised support on Friday for efforts by the Lebanese state to assert itself as Israel strikes Hezbollah militants.

"It's clear that the people of Lebanon have an interest -- a strong interest -- in the state asserting itself and taking responsibility for the country and its future," Blinken told reporters after the East Asia Summit in Laos.

EU chief Charles Michel on Friday condemned attacks on UN peace operations, after peacekeepers said Israeli forces fired on their headquarters in south Lebanon.

"An attack against a UN peace mission is not responsible, is not acceptable and that's why we call on Israel and we call on all sides to fully respect international humanitarian law," the European Council president told AFP on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian summit in Laos.