Middle East crisis live: Israel condemned over attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

United Nations Interim Force trucks patrol in Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on Saturday Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Hezbollah fighters “are engaged in violent clashes with the Israeli enemy forces... in the village of Aita al-Shaab with... machine guns, rockets and artillery shells,” the group said, later adding it targeted an “Israeli troop carrier with a guided missile” in the village.

Separately, at least nine people were killed and one person was injured on Monday in an initial toll following an Israeli air strike on the Christian-majority region of Aitou in north Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Israel’s infrastructure minister has responded to the UN in a post on X.

Eli Cohen accused the UN forces of contributing “nothing to maintaining stability and security in the region” but denied Israel was deliberately targeting peacekeepers.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon was created in 1978 to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops after Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon. Israel invaded again in 1982, and it wasn’t until 2000 that it withdrew.

In the absence of an agreed-upon border, the U.N. drew up a boundary between Lebanon and Israel known as the Blue Line, which UNIFIL monitors and patrols.

The United Nations expanded UNIFIL’s mission following the monthlong 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to deploy along the Israeli border to monitor the cessation of hostilities and patrol a buffer zone along the border.

The force currently has around 10,000 peacekeepers in southern Lebanon drawn from around 50 countries, including 16 European Union countries. The largest contributors of troops are Indonesia, with 1,231 peacekeepers, and Italy with 1,068.

They are lightly armed, and while they have the right to self-defense under certain circumstances, their role is mainly observational. This includes patrols, monitoring and reporting violations of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 fighting. The force also provides support to local communities.

Oman has long has been an interlocutor between Iran and the US, particularly in the secret talks that birthed Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“For the time being, the Muscat process is stopped because of special situation in the region,” Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state media while still in Muscat, Oman. “We do not see any ground for the talks until we can pass the current crisis.”

The health ministry in the Gaza Strip said it launched the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in the war-ravaged territory.

It said that a second does of the vaccine will be administered to children under 10 in the central part of the territory over the next three days before the campaign is expanded to the north and south.

The campaign began last month after the territory registered its first polio case in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralysed in one leg.

Health workers succeeded in administering the first dose of the vaccine to around 560,000 children despite challenges, including ongoing fighting, the breakdown of law and order and widespread damage to roads and infrastructure.

The World Health Organization said humanitarian pauses to facilitate the campaign last month were largely observed.

The European Union condemned attacks on UN peacekeepers by Israel in Lebanon and rejected allegations that UN secretary general António Guterres is responsible for obstructing the Israeli army, AP reports.

Sixteen EU countries are contributing to the UNIFIL peacekeeping force. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “their work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.”

Five peacekeepers have been wounded in recent attacks, with most blamed on Israeli forces.

Speaking in Luxembourg before chairing talks between EU foreign ministers, Borrell underlined that the UN security council decides whether UNIFIL peacekeepers should be moved, “so stop blaming Secretary Guterres.”

Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah. In a video addressed to Guterres, who has been banned from entering Israel, Netanyahu told the UN chief “to get (UNIFIL) out of the danger zone.”

Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg, whose country is one of Europe’s strongest backers of Israel, said the attacks are “simply unacceptable” and that UNFIL will not be leaving. “No, they will not withdraw. Yes, they will continue to fulfil the mandate. And yes, we demand on each and every party to respect this mandate and respect the security and safety of our blue helmets,” he told reporters.

Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said police had charged two Israelis on accusations that they planned to carry out an assassination at the behest of Iran, AP reports.

The agency said Vladislav Victorson, 30, was approached online by a person called Mari Hossi and was instructed to carry out missions that ranged from petty vandalism to torching cars, and paid more than $5,000.

The Shin Bet said Victorson was asked to damage communications infrastructure and ATMs, although a statement did not say whether he carried out these acts. It also did not name the Israeli figure he allegedly agreed to assassinate.

The Shin Bet said he also sought to acquire weapons, including a sniper rifle, guns and grenades. According to the agency, Victorson enlisted two other people, including his girlfriend, Anna Bernstein, 18, to assist in his missions.

The Shin Bet said Iranian agents are known to use social media and promises of cash in efforts to recruit Israelis to carry out such attacks.

Ireland’s foreign minister, Micheál Martin accused Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the UN, AP reports.

Asked what Israel’s aim might be in demanding that UN peacekeepers leave their bases in Lebanon after a series of attacks, Martin said: “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein.”

“We cannot have an undermining and a chipping away of the status or the credibility or structures of the United Nations and particularly its peacekeeping forces,” Martin said in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers are meeting.

“We see what’s happening in northern Gaza, for example, in terms of the necessity of eyes and ears on the ground. The world has really no full picture of what’s happening in Gaza,” he told reporters.

Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions in Lebanon since Israel began a ground campaign against the Hezbollah militant group in the country.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter that killed at least 20 people when the early morning airstrike hit and fire engulfed many of the tents.

Several secondary explosions could be heard after the initial strike, but it was not immediately clear if they were caused by weapons or fuel tanks.

Associated Press footage showed children among the wounded. A man sobbed as he carried a toddler with a bandaged head in his arms. Another small child with a bandaged leg was given a blood transfusion on the floor of the packed hospital.

Hospital records showed that four people were killed and 40 wounded. Twenty-five people were transferred to the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza after suffering severe burns, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Lisa O'Carroll

The plan proposed to Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament by a group of retired generals would escalate the pressure, giving Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone.
Those who remain would be considered combatants — meaning military regulations would allow troops to kill them - and denied food, water, medicine and fuel, according to a copy of the plan given to The Associated Press by its chief architect, who says the plan is the only way to break Hamas in the north and pressure it to release the remaining hostages.

The plan calls for Israel to maintain control over the north for an indefinite period to attempt to create a new administration without Hamas, splitting the Gaza Strip in two.

There has been no decision by the government to fully carry out the so-called “Generals’ Plan,” and it is unclear how strongly it’s being considered.

When asked if the evacuation orders in northern Gaza marked the first stages of the “Generals’ Plan,” Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said:

But one official with knowledge of the matter said parts of the plan are already being implemented, without specifying which parts. A second official, who is Israeli, said Netanyahu “had read and studied” the plan, “like many plans that have reached him throughout the war,” but didn’t say whether any of it had been adopted. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because the plan isn’t supposed to be discussed publicly.

Human rights groups say the plan would likely starve civilians and that it flies in the face of international law, which prohibits using food as a weapon and forcible transfers. Accusations that Israel is intentionally limiting food to Gaza are central to the genocide case brought against it at the Court of Justice, charges Israel denies.

A coalition of Israeli NGOs on Monday urged the international community to act, noting that “there are alarming signs that the Israeli military is beginning to quietly implement” the plan.