Newsletters
Israeli forces rammed United Nations peacekeeping vehicles with a battle tank and killed a Lebanese Red Cross paramedic in separate incidents in southern Lebanon on Sunday, compounding an already dire pattern of violence against humanitarian and international personnel that has drawn mounting international condemnation.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said Israeli ground troops twice rammed their vehicles using a Merkava tank in the coastal village of Bayada, where soldiers had been blocking a road that peacekeepers rely on to access their positions. The mission said Israeli forces have "continually blocked peacekeepers' movements on this road in recent days," and that similar denials of freedom of movement have been recorded elsewhere. The restrictions, UNIFIL said, "hinder peacekeepers' ability to report violations by both sides on the ground."
In a separate incident the same day, the Lebanese Red Cross said an Israeli drone strike hit one of its units in the southern town of Beit Yahoun, killing one paramedic and lightly wounding another.
Sunday's strike was far from an isolated case. Lebanon's health ministry says at least 87 medical workers have been killed in Israeli strikes since the conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group began on March 2. The toll underscores what health officials and humanitarian organizations describe as a systematic endangerment of emergency responders operating in active combat zones.
The war, now entering its second month, has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, according to the UN Special Coordinator for the country, and displaced nearly one million, roughly 20 percent of the population.
1 min read
UNIFIL has been sounding the alarm over attacks on its personnel since the latest round of fighting broke out. Three peacekeepers have been killed in the past month, and the mission has recorded repeated incidents of Israeli forces firing in proximity to blue helmets, blocking their movements, and damaging their facilities.
The tank-ramming incident on Sunday adds to a string of confrontations. Italy's defense minister expressed "firmest and most indignant protest" earlier this month after an Italian UNIFIL logistics convoy was fired upon with warning shots by Israeli forces, damaging one of its vehicles. Indonesia has lost multiple peacekeepers, with two killed when an explosion struck a UNIFIL convoy near Bani Hayyan, and another killed in a separate projectile strike on a mission base.
The head of UN Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, has condemned the incidents as "unacceptable," while reaffirming that peacekeepers would remain at their posts. "There cannot be a military solution," he said. "There has to be a political solution."
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
