(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
AFP
Jerusalem: Israeli Occupation army warned residents of south Lebanon "not to return" to their homes on Saturday.
As the war carries on, Israeli troops remain engaged in combat in Gaza and in southern Lebanon, amid a firestorm of criticism over the targeting and wounding of four UN peacekeepers by Israeli troops.
In a message percieved as a direct threat addressed to south Lebanese, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X: "For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice... Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk."
The war between Israel and Hezbollah has since September 23 killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, and forced more than a million to flee their homes.
People walk past the rubble of a building at the site of an Israeli strike on the Basta neighbourhood in the Lebanese capital Beirut on October 11, 2024. Photo by AFP.
On Saturday, Hezbollah had launched missiles at an Israeli army base near the northern city of Haifa, which is a military target.
In a statement the group said its fighters were "targeting the explosives factory there with a salvo of... missiles".
Air raid sirens sounded in northern Israel, with the Israeli military saying it had intercepted a projectile launched from Lebanon.
After the Yom Kippur holiday, attention is likely to turn again to Israel's expected attack against Iran, which launched around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.
'Deliberately targeted'
on Friday, Israel faced severe diplomatic backlash over a direct strike on a United Nations peacekeeping position in Lebanon.
Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were hurt in the second such incident in two days, the UNIFIL mission said Friday.
Rescuers search for survivors at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Derdghaiya on October 10, 2024. Photo by Bilal KASHMAR / AFP.
The Israeli occupation military claimed its soldiers had responded with fire to "an immediate threat" around 50 metres (yards) from the UNIFIL base in Naqura.
But the Irish military's chief of staff, Sean Clancy, said it was "not an accidental act" while French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed the UN peacekeepers had been "deliberately targeted".
Both Ireland and France are major contributors to UNIFIL.
As Israel faced a chorus of condemnation by UN chief Antonio Guterres, Western allies and others, its military -as usual- pledged to carry out a "thorough review".
UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon are on the frontline of the war, which has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
Vehicles from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol in Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on October 12, 2024. UNIFIL, which says it has come under repeated fire in the Israeli war on Lebanon in recent days, has patrolled the troubled border for decades. Photo by AFP.
Four peacekeepers have been injured including two Indonesians who were hurt on Thursday when a tank directly fired at their watchtower, according to UNIFIL.
Diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but 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".
Lebanon's official military said on Friday that an Israeli air strike on one of its positions in south Lebanon killed two soldiers.
In a show of support for Iran's ally Hezbollah, the speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited on Saturday the site of a deadly Israeli strike earlier this week that, according to a source close to Hezbollah, targeted Hezbollah's security chief Wafiq Safa.
Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (C) waves as he returns to his car after visiting the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted Beirut's Basta neighbourhood, on October 12, 2024. Photo by AFP.
Neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed whether Safa was indeed the target of the strike, but according to the Lebanese health ministry, the raid killed 22 people.
Members of the Lebanese civil defence battle a fire at the site of an Israeli strike on Beirut's Basta neighbourhood on October 11, 2024. Photo by AFP.
The visit to Lebanon, a signal of defiance, comes after Israel vowed to respond to Iran's second-ever direct attack.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed this week that their response would be "deadly, precise and surprising".
The United States is pushing for a "proportionate" response that would not tip the region into a wider war, with President Jore Biden urging Israel to avoid striking Iranian nuclear facilities or energy infrastructure.
Gaza massacres
Israel's military campaign in Gaza has wrought devastation and, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza, killed 42,175 people, a majority civilians.
Israeli operations in Gaza continue, with the army laying siege to 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.
A Palestinian youth reacts upon seeing the bodies of relatives killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, in front of the al-Maamadani on October 12, 2024. Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP.
"The bombardment has not stopped. Every minute there are shells, rockets and fire on the buildings and everything that moves", Areej Nasr, 35, told AFP after fleeing from Jabalia to Gaza City Thursday.
On Friday, Gaza's civil defence agency reported 30 people killed in Israeli air strikes in the area, including on schools being used as shelter by displaced people.
An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy artillery shelling, explosions and gunfire Saturday further south in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood.
Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee areas north of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2024. Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP.
Adraee, the Israeli military spokesman, on Saturday posted another evacuation threat for an area near Jabalia.
"The specified area, including the shelters within it, is considered a dangerous combat zone," Adraee said on X, ordering residents to move to the "humanitarian zone" in the southern part of the obliterated strip.
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