On Sunday, UN peacekeepers suffered minor accidents. File | Photograph credit score: Getty Photos
Three United Nations peacekeepers suffered minor accidents on Sunday (18 August 2024), the UN mentioned, after an explosion close to their automobile close to Lebanon’s southern border, the place Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged hearth virtually day by day.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah group has exchanged cross-border hearth with the Israeli navy in help of its ally Hamas for the reason that Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel sparked the Gaza warfare.
“Earlier right now, three peacekeepers on patrol had been calmly injured when an explosion occurred close to their clearly marked UN automobile within the neighborhood of Yarine, southern Lebanon,” the United Nations Interim Drive in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mentioned in a press release.
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“All members of the peacekeeping patrol returned safely to their base. We’re investigating the incident,” he added.
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanon’s state-run Nationwide Information Company had reported that “Israeli enemy warplanes” attacked the village of Dhayra, a few kilometer (0.6 miles) from Yarine, “inflicting accidents.”
A UNIFIL supply mentioned the explosion that wounded the peacekeepers was seemingly a close-by airstrike, however “not a direct hit.”
In early August, Assistant Secretary-Common for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix informed AFP that UNIFIL was “extra vital than ever” amid the present cross-border clashes, as a result of it was “the one channel of communication between the Israeli aspect and the Lebanese aspect in all its parts, together with Hezbollah.”
In April, a judicial official mentioned AFP that an ongoing Lebanese military investigation decided {that a} landmine injured three UN navy observers and a translator the earlier month, whereas Israel implicated Hezbollah.
UNIFIL’s mandate, which expires on the finish of the month, can be renewed by the UN Safety Council for an additional 12 months.
Cross-border violence has killed 582 folks in Lebanon, largely Hezbollah fighters however together with at the least 128 civilians, in accordance with a report. AFP account.
On the Israeli aspect, together with within the annexed Golan Heights, 22 troopers and 26 civilians have been killed, in accordance with military figures.
