Israeli forces fired at an observation post belonging to the UNIFIL peacekeeping force at its main base at Naqoura in southern Lebanon on Friday, wounding two people, a UN source said.
An escalation of conflicts in the Middle East is a serious threat to global security, and everything must be done to avoid all-out war in Lebanon, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres later said.
Guterres, speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of summits of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Laos, also condemned Israeli attacks that wounded UN personnel. He said peacekeepers must be protected.
Israeli forces also breached the perimeter of another UNIFIL position they had fired at on the day prior, the UN source told Reuters.
Spain’s Sanchez condemns Israeli attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez later condemned Israel’s attacks against the UN force in Lebanon and called on the international community to stop selling weapons to the Jewish state.
“Let me at this point criticize and condemn the attacks that the Israeli armed forces are carrying out on the United Nations mission in Lebanon,” Sanchez, whose country has often been critical of Israel in the recent escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, said after meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Angry Italy protests to Israel after shots fired at UN in Lebanon
Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said that Israeli forces have acted illegally by shooting at positions used by UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Thursday, denouncing it as a possible war crime.
The UN peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line with Israel — an area that has seen serious clashes between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.
UNIFIL said two of its peacekeepers were injured when Israeli soldiers fired on its positions on both Wednesday and Thursday.
“This was not a mistake and not an accident,” Crosetto told a news conference. “It could constitute a war crime and represented a very serious violation of international humanitarian law,” he said.
Crosetto said he had contacted his Israeli counterpart to protest and summoned the Israeli ambassador to Italy to demand an explanation, which was not yet forthcoming.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
However, on Thursday evening, the IDF released a statement acknowledging that it had fired in the area of a UNIFIL base.
After noting that Hezbollah regularly operates from civilian areas in southern Lebanon, as well as areas near UNIFIL infrastructure, the military stated that, on Thursday morning, troops had operated next to a UNIFIL base in the Naqoura area of southern Lebanon.
“Accordingly, the IDF instructed the UN forces in the area to remain in protected spaces, following which the forces opened fire in the area,” the IDF stated.
