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Agence France-Presse

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon warned Saturday against a “catastrophic” regional conflict as Israeli forces battled Hezbollah and Hamas militants on two fronts, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
Israel has faced a fierce diplomatic backlash over the injuries suffered by five Blue Helmets serving in south Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said on Saturday that Israeli air strikes on three sites had killed at least 15 people, raising an earlier toll.
Israel had earlier told residents of south Lebanon not to return home, as its troops fought Hezbollah militants in a war that has killed more than 1,200 people since September 23.
More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes, Lebanese authorities say.

Hezbollah said it had fired missiles into northern Israel, where air raid sirens sounded and the military said it had intercepted a projectile. The Iran-backed militants have stepped up their attacks on targets in and around Israel’s main northern city of Haifa.
Israel’s military said Hezbollah fired about 320 projectiles into Israel over the weekend of Yom Kippur, which ended at nightfall.
It also said roughly 280 “terror targets” were attacked in Lebanon and Gaza over the same period.
For the third time, it declared a “closed military area” along the Lebanese border in northern Israel. Such measures since late September have preceded ground operations inside Lebanon.
In an interview, Andrea Tenenti, spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission, Unifil, said he feared an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah could soon spiral “into a regional conflict with catastrophic impact for everyone”.
There is “no military solution”, Tenenti said.
The UN mission said five peacekeepers had been wounded during fighting in south Lebanon in two days, and Tenenti said “a lot of damage” had been caused to its posts there.
But he added: “There was a unanimous decision to stay because it’s important for the UN flag to still fly high in this region, and to be able to report to the Security Council.”

Around Israel, markets were closed and public transport halted as observant Jews fasted and prayed on Yom Kippur.
After the holiday, attention is likely to turn again to Israel’s promised retaliation against Iran, which launched around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.
Tehran said the barrage was retaliation for the killing of top militants and an Iranian general.
Israeli forces have been at war in Gaza since Hamas militants on October 7 last year carried out the worst-ever attack on Israel.
Hezbollah, saying it was acting as a “support” front for Hamas, had been exchanging cross-border fire with Israel for almost a year.
But on September 30 Israel began a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon after intensifying air strikes on targets there.


On Friday, Israel faced criticism from the United Nations, its Western allies and others over what it said was a “hit” on a UN peacekeeping position in Lebanon.
Two Sri Lankan Blue Helmets were hurt in the second such incident in two days, Unifil said on Friday.
Israel’s military said soldiers had responded to “an immediate threat” around 50 metres (165 feet) from the Unifil base in Naqura, and pledged to carry out a “thorough review”.
The Irish military’s chief of staff, Sean Clancy, said it was “not an accidental act”, and French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed the peacekeepers had been “deliberately targeted”. Both countries are troop contributors to Unifil.
On Saturday, 40 contributing nations said in a joint statement that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers.


Efforts to negotiate an end to the Lebanon war have so far failed.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire”.
But Jordan called for tougher measures and an end to “impunity” for Israel. It said the UN’s Chapter 7 must be enacted “to force” Israeli compliance with international law.
Macron repeated his call for a ceasefire and said Hezbollah must “immediately stop” attacking Israel.
In a show of support for Hezbollah – which Iran arms and finances – the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, on Saturday visited the site of an earlier deadly Israeli strike.
A source close to Hezbollah said the strike had targeted the group’s security chief Wafiq Safa, something neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed.
Ghalibaf’s visit, a signal of Tehran’s defiance, comes after Israel vowed to respond to Iran’s second-ever direct attack, after an earlier missile barrage in April.

Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official Israeli figures. The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 42,175 people, a majority civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign began there.
Israeli operations in Gaza continue, with the army besieging an area around Jabalia in the north, causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted an evacuation warning on X for an area near Jabalia, saying it was “considered a dangerous combat zone”.
“There is no safe place, neither in the south nor in the north – everyone is at risk of death,” Sami Asliya, 27, said.
On Friday, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 30 people killed in Israeli strikes in the area, including on schools sheltering displaced people.
Heavy shelling, explosions and gunfire were reported on Saturday further south in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood.


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Middle East

Rescuers search for victims at the site of an Israeli air strike in Beirut, Lebanon, on Friday. Photo: AP

Lebanese women walk past cars destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Beirut, Lebanon, on Friday. Photo: AFP

Unifil spokesman Andrea Tenenti points at Beirut’s southern suburbs from his office in Baabda, east of the Lebanese capital, on Saturday. Photo: AFP

A boy watches smoke rise while standing in the balcony of the Rafei school, being used as a displacement shelter, in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

A Palestinian boy upon seeing the bodies of relatives killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the Jabilia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, in front of the al-Maamadani on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee areas north of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday. In recent days, the IDF has launched an intense ground and air assault in northern Gaza, particularly in and around the city of Jabilia. Photo: AFP

A child is vaccinated against the polio virus at the health centre in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on September 1. The World Health Organization (WHO) is negotiating with Israel for new ceasefires in the Gaza Strip to vaccinate children against polio for a second time. Photo: dpa

Israeli fire on UN’s Lebanon headquarters spotlights safety of Indonesians amid evacuation

Unifil peacekeepers stand on the roof of a watch tower ‏in the town of Marwahin, southern Lebanon. The mission has about 10,000 peacekeepers stationed in south Lebanon. Photo: Reuters

The base of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon in Ebel El Saqi Marjeyoun District, southern Lebanon. Photo: EPA-EFE

Unifil base in south Lebanon’s Ebel El Saqi Marjeyoun District. Unifil was set up in 1978 to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces after they invaded Lebanon in reprisal for a Palestinian attack. Photo: EPA-EFE

Hezbollah faces backlash in Lebanon as Israel expands invasion

A man looks at destroyed buildings hit by Israeli air strikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: AP

Smoke rises in Beirut’s southern suburbs after a strike, as a plane takes off from Rafic Hariri International Airport. Photo: Reuters

Destroyed buildings hit by an Israeli air strike in central Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday. Photo: AP

Israeli soldiers operate at a location given as southern Lebanon in this image released on October 6. Photo: Israel Defence Forces via Reuters

Tents set up as temporary shelters by displaced families in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: AP

News

World

Israel says Hezbollah fired about 320 projectiles into Israel over the weekend of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar


Israel says Hezbollah fired about 320 projectiles into Israel over the weekend of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
