File : UNIFIL peacekeepers shown standing near the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon
Three United Nations observers and a translator were wounded on Saturday when a shell exploded near them as they were carrying out a foot patrol in south Lebanon, the U.N. peacekeeping mission said, adding it was still investigating the origin of the blast.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL, as well as unarmed technical observers known as UNTSO, are stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel, known as the Blue Line.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has been trading fire with the Israeli military across the Blue Line since October in parallel with the war in Gaza.
UNIFIL said in a statement on Saturday that the targeting of peacekeepers is “unacceptable” and that the wounded staff had been evacuated for treatment.
Two security sources had earlier told Reuters the observers were wounded in an Israeli strike outside the border town of Rmeish.
The Israeli military denied involvement in the incident. “Contrary to the reports, the IDF did not strike a UNIFIL vehicle in the area of Rmeish this morning,” the military said in a statement.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati spoke with UNIFIL commander Aroldo Lozaro, condemning the “targeting” and wounding of U.N. staff in southern Lebanon, according to a statement from Mikati’s office.
The mayor of Rmeish, Milad Alam, told Reuters that he had spoken with the Lebanese translator and confirmed his condition was stable.
“From Rmeish, we heard a blast and then saw a UNIFIL car zipping by. The foreign observers were taken to hospitals in Tyre and Beirut by helicopter and car,” Milad said, without providing details on their condition.
One of the observers was a Norwegian citizen, who was lightly injured, the Nordic country’s defense ministry told Reuters. Lebanon’s National News Agency said the other two wounded observers were Chilean and Australian.
Last June , a Lebanese military tribunal formally accused five members of Hezbollah and the allied Amal Movement of killing an Irish U.N. peacekeeper in 2022
Private Sean Rooney, 23, was killed on Dec. 15 in the first fatal attack on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon since 2015.
On Dec. 16, 2022 Ireland’s then-foreign and defense minister Simon Coveney told state broadcaster RTE that he did not accept Hezbollah’s assurances that it had no involvement.
Hezbollah has been for years trying to restrict the movement of UNIFIL in south Lebanon.
The U.N. Security Council last August approved a resolution demanding that the Lebanese military and Hezbollah stop blocking the movement of the U.N. peacekeeping force and guarantee its freedom to operate, “including by allowing announced and unannounced patrols.”
Patriarch calls for ending Hezbollah-Israeli attacks
The Rmeish attack prompted Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai during his Easter mass on Saturday to say:
“We call on the Lebanese to come together in declaring an immediate end of the war without any delay as well as commitment to U.N. resolutions and to sparing the south its plight that is coming from the Israeli killing machine.”
Al-Rahi saluted “the southerners who are resilient in their towns and villages under the bombardment” and “all those who lost dear ones, whose homes were destroyed or who were displaced to other regions.”
“The south and its land and people should not be turned into a card used by some to serve the causes and wars of others, seeing as Lebanon and its south are for all Lebanese, who should decide together the future, safety and security of their country, as well as when it fights and for whom it fights,” al-Rai added.
The majority of Lebanese reportedly consider Hezbollah’s attacks in south Lebanon are intended to please Iran and its proxy Hamas, and have nothing to do with Lebanon. Hezbollah was reportedly created by Israel to protect its borders from the PLO and in 1982 it was adopted by Iran which continues to arm, fund and train it . The majority of the Lebanese are also opposed to the bullying by Israel ever since it was created in 1948. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied south Lebanon until May 2000 . Hundreds of thousands of the Palestinians that were displaced in Palestine in 1948 are living in camps in Lebanon
Reuters/ Ya Libnan
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