The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said on Thursday that Israeli forces had deliberately fired on its positions, injuring two peacekeepers and bringing fresh accusations of violations of international law.
Israel has been carrying out repeated ground incursions across the border into Lebanon in its war with Hezbollah, as the conflict that began in Gaza a year ago continues to spread across the region.
The alleged attacks brought expressions of outrage from UN member states who contribute troops to the UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil), at a time Israel is already under scrutiny on multiple fronts for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A UN report published on Thursday accused Israel of pursuing a concerted policy of destroying Gaza’s healthcare system in the war in the strip, saying this constituted war crimes and extermination as a crime against humanity.
The report was authored by a UN-commissioned panel of experts led by a former UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay.
Before the presentation of the full report to the UN general assembly on 30 October, Pillay issued a statement previewing its findings, saying Israel had carried out “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” over the course of the war, triggered by a Hamas attack on 7 October last year on southern Israel.
“Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” Pillay said.
There was no immediate response from Israel, which has consistently accused the UN of institutional bias against it.
The international court of justice is weighing claims led by South Africa that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, and the international criminal court is considering calls for arrest warrants for war crimes against Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar.
An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah killed 27 people on Thursday, including a child and seven women, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where the bodies were brought.
The Israeli military said it carried out a precision strike targeting a militant command and control centre inside the school. More than 42,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, are estimated to have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the war began.
Late on Thursday, 22 people were killed and at least 117 injured in Israeli airstrikes on the Basta neighbourhood of central Beirut, a working-class area that has hosted many displaced people.
Unifil said an Israeli tank fired on an observation tower in the force’s headquarters in Naqoura just north of the Lebanese border, causing two Indonesian peacekeepers to fall off it.
“The injuries are fortunately, this time, not serious, but they remain in hospital,” a Unifil statement said, adding that deliberate attacks on UN peacekeepers was a “grave violation” of international law.
Unifil said Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers also fired at a UN observation post at Labbouneh a few hundred metres from the border, “hitting the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, and damaging vehicles and a communications system”.
The Unifil statement made it clear that the peacekeepers thought the attacks on their positions were no accident, suggesting there had been premeditation.
“An IDF drone was observed flying inside the UN position up to the bunker entrance,” it said. “Yesterday, IDF soldiers deliberately fired at and disabled the position’s perimeter-monitoring cameras.”
Unifil also said Israeli forces had “deliberately fired” on a UN facility at a border point on the coast where peacekeepers hosted tripartite meetings with Israeli and Lebanese officers before the outbreak of the current conflict.
Unifil said any deliberate attack on peacekeepers was a “grave violation of international humanitarian law” and of security council resolution 1701.
The Irish government, which has a contingent of troops in Unifil, said none of its peacekeepers had been hurt, but the taoiseach, Simon Harris, said attacks on peacekeepers “can never be tolerated or acceptable”.
France, Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia and Ghana also contribute soldiers to Unifil ranks.
Italy’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, said firing on Unifil bases was “totally unacceptable” and clearly flouted international law.
The French foreign ministry condemned the attack and said it was awaiting an explanation from Israel.
The IDF said its troops had opened fire near the Unifil base after instructing UN forces in the area to remain in protected spaces on Thursday morning. “Hezbollah operates from within and near civilian areas in southern Lebanon, including areas near Unifil posts,” it said in a brief statement.
The attacks on Unifil positions came two days after a standoff between Israeli forces and 30 Irish peacekeepers at a UN observation post on the border, after the IDF parked more than two dozen tanks and other armoured vehicles around the position last Saturday.
The Israeli forces finally withdrew on Tuesday but only after a flurry of calls from the taoiseach and the Irish foreign minister to UN leaders and to Joe Biden.
The Irish foreign minister, Micheál Martin, said Thursday’s incidents of UN positions being fired on were “unacceptable”.
“Peacekeeping is the noblest thing anyone can do,” Martin added. “UN peacekeeping soldiers are there to keep the peace at the invitation of both sides to this conflict, and Israel has an obligation to make sure that no UN peacekeeper gets into harm’s way.”
Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition has taken an increasingly aggressive approach to the UN, and particularly Unrwa, the organisation’s relief agency for Palestinian refugees, which Israel alleges has been infiltrated by Hamas. A UN internal inquiry reported in August that nine Unrwa employees may have been involved in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel in which 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 taken hostage.
An Israeli parliamentary committee has approved a pair of bills this week that would ban Unrwa from operating on Israeli territory. The head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, told the UN that if the bills were approved by the full Knesset it would be a violation of Israel’s obligations under the UN charter and of international law, and that it could lead Unrwa to disintegrate.
The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said that the infiltration of Unrwa was “so ingrained, so institutional, that the organisation is simply beyond repair”.
