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United Nations peacekeepers in south Lebanon came under fire three times on Sunday in attacks likely carried out by non-state armed groups, as Israel flatly rejected Lebanese proposals for direct negotiations to end a two-week-old war with Hezbollah that has killed hundreds and displaced more than 800,000 people.
The escalating violence showed no signs of abating, with an Israeli strike on the coastal city of Sidon killing a Hamas official, Israeli military renewing evacuation warnings for Beirut's southern suburbs, and Lebanon's health ministry reporting a rising civilian death toll that has now reached 850.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had proposed direct talks with Israel, and a Lebanese official said on Saturday that Beirut was preparing to form a delegation to negotiate, though no agenda, timing or location had been set. French President Emmanuel Macron offered to host the negotiations, saying the Lebanese government was ready to engage.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar responded with a blunt "no" when asked whether Israel was prepared to hold such talks on Sunday, effectively closing the diplomatic window Beirut had tried to open.
Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen went further, calling for the cancellation of a US-brokered 2022 maritime border deal with Lebanon. Cohen argued that the agreement's security guarantees for Israel had not been honoured.
The maritime deal, brokered by the United States, had resolved a long-running dispute between the two countries over Mediterranean gas exploration rights and was seen at the time as a rare diplomatic breakthrough between nations that have no formal relations.
Lebanon was pulled into the wider Middle East conflict on March 2 when Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes. Israel responded with air raids across Lebanon and ground incursions into border areas.
Lebanese authorities said more than 830,000 people have now registered as displaced, with some 130,000 sheltering in collective facilities. But hundreds more have been left sleeping rough or in makeshift tents near central Beirut's seafront, where driving rain on Sunday compounded their suffering.
Nader, a 42-year-old coffee shop owner displaced from Beirut's southern suburbs, said he had only recently rebuilt his home after the previous Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2024. "Here we have nothing and the situation is very bad with the heavy rains and wind, it's very cold, lots of babies are sick and we can't protect them," he told AFP.
An AFP photographer in south Beirut described empty streets covered with debris and flattened buildings, with smoke still rising days after strikes had torn through the area.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported three separate incidents of fire directed at its peacekeepers on Sunday, likely by non-state armed groups in the south. The incidents came two days after a different UNIFIL position was hit by fire that Lebanon's official National News Agency blamed on Israel.
UNIFIL, established in 1978 and expanded after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, has long operated in a volatile corridor along the Israeli-Lebanese border, frequently caught between warring parties.
Israeli strikes continued across Lebanon's south and east on Sunday. In Sidon, Israel struck an apartment in a residential building in a northern district, killing one person and sparking a fire. An AFP correspondent saw rescue teams battling the blaze as residents rushed into the street carrying their belongings.
A Hamas source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the strike killed Wissam Taha, a Hamas official. Israel has repeatedly targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon in recent years, including during previous rounds of hostilities and after a 2024 ceasefire.
Southeast of Sidon, an overnight Israeli strike killed three people in the village of Al-Qatrani, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Israel's military said it had struck Hezbollah launch sites in the area.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, claimed a series of attacks on sites inside Israel and on Israeli troops operating in south Lebanon. The group said its fighters fired an "advanced missile" at the Palmachim air base south of Tel Aviv. The Israeli military said it had destroyed command centres belonging to Hezbollah's elite Radwan in Beirut.
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