A senior Hezbollah official escaped an Israeli assassination attempt as the Israeli strikes pounded central Beirut on Thursday and the UN said its peacekeeping headquarters were targeted in Southern Lebanon.
The Lebanon Health Ministry said that Israeli airstrikes on central Beirut killed 22 people and wounded dozens, further escalating Israel’s bloody conflict with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
The air raid on central Beirut, the deadliest in over a year of the war, targeted two residential buildings in separate neighbourhoods simultaneously. It brought down one eight-story building and wiped out the lower floors of the other.
After the strikes, Hezbollah sources claimed that an attempt to kill Wafiq Safa, a top security official with the group, had failed. It said that Safa had not been inside either of the targeted buildings.
Earlier on Thursday, a Lebanese security source claimed that Israeli airstrikes on central Beirut targeted at least one senior official in Iran-backed Hezbollah.
UN Peacekeepers Hit
The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said in a statement that its headquarters and positions “have been repeatedly hit” by Israeli forces.
It said an Israeli tank “directly” fired on an observation tower at the force’s headquarters in the town of Naqoura, Lebanon, and that soldiers had attacked a bunker near where peacekeepers were sheltering, damaging vehicles and a communication system. It said an Israeli drone was seen flying to the bunker’s entrance.
The two UNIFIL troops wounded in the attacks and hospitalized are Indonesian, Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.
From Italy, which has about 1,000 soldiers deployed as part of UNIFIL, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto went further, claiming Israel ‘deliberately targeted’ the UNIFIL base in southern Lebanon in strikes that “could constitute war crimes.”
US Responds To Attack On Peacekeepers
The incident of the IDF Merkava tank firing its weapon toward an observation tower at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura drew severe backlash from various countries including their key ally, the US.
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said: “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 at a UN base in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it had ordered the peacekeepers to “remain in protected spaces.”
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