United Nations peacekeeping forces are urging calm after Israel conducted strikes against southern Lebanon in response to a cross-border rocket barrage in the midst of a worsening series of escalations in the region.
“Early this morning, the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] informed UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] that they will begin an artillery response to yesterday’s rocket launches,” a spokesperson for UNIFIL told Newsweek. “Immediately after, UNIFIL personnel heard loud explosions around the city of Tyre.”
“UNIFIL’s Head of Mission and Force Commander, Major General Aroldo Lázaro, is speaking with authorities on both sides of the Blue Line,” the spokesperson added.
UNIFIL is a multinational force comprised of around 10,000 troops from 47 nations deployed to the tense Israel-Lebanon border, also known as the Blue Line, where up to 35 rockets were launched into Israel by what the IDF has assessed to be Palestinian factions in Lebanon. IDF spokesperson Richard Hecht said earlier Thursday that 25 of the rockets were intercepted, but no response had yet been conducted.
“Our liaison and coordination mechanisms are fully engaged. Both sides have said they do not want a war,” the UNIFIL spokesperson said. “The actions over the past day are dangerous and risk a serious escalation. We urge all parties to cease all actions across the Blue Line now.”
The IDF confirmed the operation.
“The IDF struck targets including terror infrastructures belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in southern Lebanon,” the IDF said in a statement shared with Newsweek.
“The IDF will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to operate from within Lebanon and holds the state of Lebanon responsible for every directed fire emanating from its territory,” the statement added.
Newsweek has reached out to the media offices of Hamas and Hezbollah for comment.
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Lebanon’s official National News Agency had earlier reported Israeli artillery fire near the outskirts of the villages of Al-Qleila, Al-Maalieh and Wadi Zibqin in the southern Tyre district. The Lebanese Armed Forces also said they discovered rocket launchers suspected of being used in the strikes against Israel in the vicinity of these sites.
Hours after the strikes, Hamas shared with Newsweek a statement on a meeting between the group’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, and Palestinian resistance factions in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. The gathering resulted in an eight-point call for action appealing to Palestinians across the region as well as Arab and Muslim countries to take action in response to the controversial storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli forces that began Tuesday.
The IDF said the raids were conducted to remove Palestinian worshippers armed with firecrackers, sticks and stones who had barricaded themselves in the compound considered the third holiest site in Islam. The Israeli operation drew regional condemnation, however, and further spurred a growing year-long wave of violence in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The IDF has also been actively striking the Gaza Strip, from which an ongoing barrage of rockets have been fired against Israel. With rockets also coming from Lebanon, the situation has begun to near the instability witnessed in May of 2021, when an all-out conflict erupted between the IDF and Gaza-based Palestinian factions backed by rocket fire from both Lebanon and Syria. The two-week war ended with a ceasefire brokered by Egypt, but violence has continued to flare over the past two years.
This is a developing news story. More information will be added as it becomes available.