A shell hit the headquarters of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the south of the country on Saturday, a spokesman said, the second such incident since gunfire intensified on the Israel-Lebanese border.
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“A shell hit the base” of Naqoura, said Andrea Tenenti, spokesman for UNIFIL in Lebanon. He said there were no injuries but some damage, adding that UNIFIL was trying to find out who was behind the shooting.
“An Israeli shell penetrated the concrete wall” surrounding the UNIFIL headquarters in southern Lebanon, just a few kilometers from the border, a Lebanese military source said on condition of anonymity.
On Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah since the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7th.
That day, hundreds of Hamas fighters crossed from Gaza onto Israeli soil, where they carried out the deadliest attack in Israeli history.
Since then, more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, most of them civilians killed in the attack.
In retaliation, the Israeli army is relentlessly shelling the Palestinian territory in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas. Since October 7, Israeli bombings have killed 7,703 people, mostly civilians.
In Lebanon, UNIFIL said in a statement that the shell that hit its headquarters on Saturday did not explode, adding that “several” of its positions had been damaged in the “last three weeks.”
AFP
“We call on all parties to a ceasefire,” the statement continued.
The headquarters of the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon was hit by a rocket on October 15th.
Hezbollah said it attacked several Israeli positions with artillery, guided missiles and other weapons on Saturday.
The Israeli army confirmed that “several anti-tank missiles and mortar shells” were fired at its positions on the border, saying they struck uninhabited areas.
AFP
Tanks and artillery responded to the areas where the shots came from, hitting Hezbollah’s infrastructure in Lebanon, it added.
For its part, the official Lebanese Press Agency (ANI) said that an “enemy drone” carried out three attacks in an area more than 20 km from the border.
According to an AFP report, at least 58 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 7 in exchanges of fire on the Lebanese-Israeli border, most of them Hezbollah fighters, but also four civilians, including a journalist.
In Israel, the army reported four deaths, including a civilian.
The shooting displaced nearly 29,000 people in Lebanon, according to the International Organization for Migration.