Middle East latest: EU condemns attacks on peacekeepers in Lebanon

The European Union on Monday condemned attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and rejected Israeli allegations that the U.N. was keeping them there to obstruct military operations against Hezbollah.

Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions since Israel began a ground campaign against the Hezbollah militant group, with most blamed on Israeli forces. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said “their work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.”

Israel has been escalating its campaign against Hezbollah after a year of exchanges of fire, while it is also at war with Hamas in Gaza.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Here's the latest:

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations’ chief is in frequent contact with the commander of the U.N.’s peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon and says the mission is doing its best to protect its forces.

The mission, known as UNIFIL, has come under attack several times since Israel began a ground campaign against the Hezbollah militant group. Five peacekeepers have been wounded. Israel has said the U.N. is keeping its forces along Lebanon’s border with Israel to obstruct its military operations.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “is extremely appreciative of the courage and dedication of the more than 10,000 uniformed peacekeepers and civilian staff serving in the mission.”

The Security Council established UNIFIL in 1978 and its mandate was strengthened after the Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon in 2006.

“UNIFIL continuously assesses and reviews all factors to determine its own posture and its own presence,” Dujarric said. “The mission is taking all possible measures to ensure the protection of its peacekeepers.”

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rebuked the United Nations, describing its failure to protect peacekeepers in Lebanon as “shameful” and “worrying.”

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, has come under direct attack in the past week, with Israeli troops firing at the peacekeepers’ headquarters and positions.

“Israeli tanks enter UNIFIL territory, attack peacekeepers, even injure some of them. But the United Nations Security Council is just watching these bandits from the tribunes. This is weakness. This is surrendering to Israeli aggression,” Erdogan said in a televised address Monday.

“The image of a United Nations that cannot even protect its own personnel is shameful and worrying for the international system,” he said. “We ask ourselves what else the Security Council is waiting for to stop Israel.”

The Turkish president has consistently called for reform of the U.N., especially of the Security Council, saying it is unfair that global decisions are made by its five permanent members.

ROME — A patrol of the Italian contingent of the U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon found explosive devices positioned along the road leading to a U.N. base.

The Italian Defense Ministry says a team of bomb disposal experts secured the area close to Forward Operating Base UNP 1-32A, but they couldn't complete the clearance operation because one of the devices ignited, causing a fire. No one was injured.

The ministry says UNIFIL — the U.N. peacekeepers — and Lebanese authorities are “investigating the dynamics of the events and tracing the perpetrators of the potential threat.”

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military says its forces operating in southern Lebanon uncovered an underground compound stretching 800 meters (half a mile) that served as a command center for Hezbollah’s special forces.

A video released by the army Monday shows weapons and ammunitions that it says are stored inside the tunnel, including helicopter-fired missiles and mortar shells. It also shows motorcycles and living quarters containing beds and a kitchen stocked with food and supplies.

The army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, says the tunnel is a few kilometers from Israel’s border, and that the weapons stocked there were to be used in a raid on northern Israel.

Israeli leaders and its military have for years accused Hezbollah of hiding weapons and fighters inside homes and other civilian structures in border villages.

The army has mobilized thousands of troops for what it says is an ongoing ground operation to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure along the border.

At least 1,700 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million displaced in the past month. Around 60 Israelis have been killed in Hezbollah strikes in the past year. Israel says it wants to drive the militant group away from shared borders so some 60,000 displaced Israelis can return to their homes.

JERUSALEM — Israel says it has allowed 30 trucks of aid to reach northern Gaza, breaking a 2-week stretch during which the U.N. says aid levels fell precipitously in the area.

The Israeli body managing aid crossings into the territory, COGAT, said Monday that 30 trucks carrying flour and food from the U.N.’s main food agency traveled through the northern crossing after inspection. The U.N. has not confirmed the statement.

For the last two weeks, nearly no food, water, fuel or supplies have reached the north, the U.N. says, with both major crossings closed since Oct. 1.

The cutoff, combined with a renewed Israeli offensive in the area, has raised fears that Israel is pursuing an extreme plan proposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would besiege the northern third of the strip in an effort to prompt a Hamas surrender.

COGAT says 30 trucks were transferred into Gaza on Sunday through a crossing known as “Gate 96,” north of the strip, though it was unclear where the aid went because, the UN says, trucks traveling through that crossing do not go directly to the north.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Rocket fire from Lebanon set off sirens in Tel Aviv and over 180 communities across central Israel on Monday.

The Israeli military says three projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon and all were intercepted. Israel’s police say debris from an interception fell in a city south of Tel Aviv but there were no reports of injuries or significant damage.

Rocket attacks on northern Israel meanwhile continued unabated, with the army saying that approximately 90 projectiles were identified by the afternoon. Most were intercepted or fell in open areas.

A 50-year-old woman was lightly injured and heavy damage was caused in a volley of 15 rockets on the northern town of Karmiel, the military and the Israeli rescue service said.

Hezbollah has fired more than 12,000 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel since the start of the hostilities one year ago, according to the army. Most of the fire has been directed at the north of the country, but attacks have reached deeper into Israel and become more frequent since the conflict escalated in mid September.

On Sunday, a Hezbollah drone attack on a military base in the city of Binyamina killed four soldiers and wounded 61.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has sent out 1.7 million text messages, 3.4 million voice messages and made 3,700 voice calls notifying civilians in Lebanon to evacuate as it continues with its ground invasion there.

Some 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since last October, more than three-quarters of them in the past month, according to the Lebanese government. At least 1.2 million people have been displaced — the vast majority since Israel ramped up airstrikes across the country last month.

Israel says it is making an effort to communicate with civilians ahead of airstrikes, but people interviewed by the the Associated Press say that they don’t receive the warnings -- or that they come in the middle of the night or don’t adequately cover the area that is struck.

An Israeli intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said Monday that there are 60 Arabic speakers working to call village leaders -- from doctors and governors to teachers -- to urge their communities to evacuate.

The official said that the military makes the calls to village leaders hours before airstrikes occur, and that the military notifies residents in Beirut before their buildings are struck.

Lebanese say the orders often come at very short notice, and it’s not clear where people can go or when they will be able to return home. Most of the villages along the border with Lebanon have suffered extreme damage and emptied out since the start of Israel’s ground invasion. Beirut’s southern suburbs, too, have seen an exodus.

One quarter of Lebanese territory is now under Israeli military displacement orders, according to the U.N.’s human rights division.

— By Julia Frankel

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Commenting on the incident, the Israeli army official said its troops exchanged fire with armed militants during a “counterterrorism” operation Wednesday in the Jenin area, killing one of the gunmen.

According to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, one of the slain men was 17 years old. Four others were injured by Israeli fire during the raid, it said.

Violence has flared in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war erupted 12 months ago.

According to Palestinian Health Ministry data, over 750 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the territory since the war began. The northern West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarem, has seen some of the worst violence.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant briefed his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin on the deadly Hezbollah drone attack on a military base in Israel late Sunday and vowed “a forceful response.”

The attack near the city of Binyamina killed four soldiers and wounded 61. It was the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon two weeks ago.

In his talk with Austin, Gallant “highlighted the severity of the attack and the forceful response that would be taken against Hezbollah,” his office said.

He also “reiterated the measures" taken by the military to coordinate with UNIFIL peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and to avoid harming them, after mounting criticism of Israel for repeatedly firing on U.N. soldiers.

Gallant’s office said he expressed his appreciation to Austin and the U.S. administration for deciding to send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel “in the coming days.”

BEIRUT — The Lebanese Red Cross says an Israeli airstrike in northern Lebanon has killed at least 18 people.

The strike hit a small apartment building in the village of Aito on Monday, and was one of the northernmost strikes since Israel invaded Lebanon earlier this month.

The Hezbollah militant group is mainly present in the south of the country and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

BEIRUT — Lebanese officials say an Israeli airstrike hit near an aid convoy in Lebanon, wounding a driver and lightly damaging the trucks.

The humanitarian aid, which reached Beirut on Monday, was marked with the flags of Turkey and the United Arab Emirates as well as the Red Cross insignia.

Baalbek-Hermel Gov. Bachir Khodr, who accompanied the convoy, said the airstrike hit as it was passing through northeastern Lebanon. He shared a picture on the social platform X taken from inside a vehicle showing a large cloud of smoke on the road ahead.

It was not clear how badly the driver was wounded.

The Red Cross did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BERLIN — The German government has sharply criticizes the shelling of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and is calling on Israel to clarify what exactly happened.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told reporters in Berlin on Monday that “all parties to the conflict, including the Israeli army, are obliged to direct their combat operations exclusively against military targets of the other party to the conflict.” Spokesman Sebastian Fischer said that a comprehensive investigation is expected and that talks on the matter were being held with the Israeli side.

The situation in southern Lebanon is causing growing concern, Fischer added, saying that “the shelling of U.N. peacekeepers and the intrusion into their bases is in no way acceptable,” and that the protection and security of U.N. troops had top priority.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran has stopped indirect talks with the United States in Oman as tensions remain high over a possible Israeli retaliatory strike on Tehran over an earlier missile attack, the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister said Monday.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made the comment to Iranian state media while still in Muscat, Oman. The sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula long has been an interlocutor between Iran and the U.S., particularly in the secret talks that birthed Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“For the time being, the Muscat process is stopped because of special situation in the region,” Araghchi said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. “We do not see any ground for the talks until we can pass the current crisis.”

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran under new President Masoud Pezeshkian has been signaling it wants to negotiate with the U.S. for sanctions relief. Since then-President Donald Trump pulled America out of the nuclear accord, Tehran has begun enriching uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels and increasing the size of its stockpile. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and officials insist Iran has not begun an effort to build a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, Israel has threatened a major retaliatory strike over Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this month, the second-such direct assault on Israel by Iran since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

BRUSSELS — Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin is accusing Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the United Nations.

Asked what Israel’s aim might be in demanding that UNIFIL peacekeepers leave their bases after a series of attacks, Martin said: “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein.”

“We cannot have an undermining and a chipping away of the status or the credibility or structures of the United Nations and particularly its peacekeeping forces,” Martin said in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers are meeting.

“We see what’s happening in northern Gaza, for example, in terms of the necessity of eyes and ears on the ground. The world has really no full picture of what’s happening in Gaza,” he told reporters.

Martin added that “Israel is essentially now undermining (not only) the United Nations and the United Nations peacekeeping force, but the very rules based international order, and it needs to step back.”

He called on his EU counterparts “to stand up now on the side of what’s right and proper and moral in terms of humanity.”

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said Monday police had charged two Israelis on accusations that they planned to carry out an assassination at the behest of Iran.

The agency said Vladislav Victorson, 30, was approached online by a person called Mari Hossi and was instructed to carry out missions that ranged from petty vandalism to torching cars, and paid more than $5,000.

The Shin Bet said Victorson was asked to damage communications infrastructure and ATMs, although a statement did not say whether he carried out these acts. It also did not name the Israeli figure he allegedly agreed to assassinate. The Shin Bet said he also sought to acquire weapons, including a sniper’s rifle, guns and grenades. According to the Shin Bet, Victorson enlisted two other people, including his girlfriend, Anna Bernstein, 18, to assist in his missions.

The Shin Bet said Iranian agents are known to use social media and promises of cash in efforts to recruit Israelis to carry out such attacks.

Israel and Iran have a longstanding shadow war, which over the past year has erupted into direct conflict.

BRUSSELS — The European Union condemned attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and rejected allegations that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is responsible for obstructing the Israeli army.

Sixteen EU countries are contributing to the UNIFIL peacekeeping force. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “their work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.” Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions, with most blamed on Israeli forces.

Speaking in Luxembourg before chairing talks between EU foreign ministers, Borrell underlined that the U.N. Security Council decides whether UNIFIL should be moved, “so stop blaming Secretary Guterres.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah. In a video addressed to Guterres, who has been banned from entering Israel, Netanyahu told the U.N. chief “to get (UNIFIL) out of the danger zone.”

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, whose country is one of Europe’s strongest backers of Israel, said the attacks are “simply unacceptable” and that UNFIL will not be leaving.

“No, they will not withdraw. Yes, they will continue to fulfill the mandate. And yes, we demand on each and every party to respect this mandate and respect the security and safety of our blue helmets,” he told reporters.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said it has launched the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in the war-ravaged territory.

It said Monday that a second does of the vaccine will be administered to children under 10 in the central part of the territory over the next three days before the campaign is expanded to the north and south.

The campaign began last month after the territory registered its first polio case in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in one leg.

Health workers succeeded in administering the first dose of the vaccine to around 560,000 children despite myriad challenges, including ongoing fighting, the breakdown of law and order and widespread damage to roads and infrastructure.

The World Health Organization said humanitarian pauses to facilitate the campaign last month were largely observed.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — “It is totally, utterly unacceptable for Israel to be targeting U.N. Peacekeepers,” New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told reporters in the capital on Monday.

“I think the whole world is outraged that Israel is targeting U.N. facilities. They are there on a peacekeeping mission to try and keep the peace on that border,” he said.