Four UN peacekeepers injured by rocket fire in Lebanon

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Four UN peacekeepers injured by rocket ***** in Lebanon

Reuters

The UN peacekeeping agency in southern Lebanon says four of its troops were injured when a rocket hit a base, one of three separate incidents in which its troops and bases came under ***** on Tuesday.

Four Ghanaian peacekeepers were injured, with three requiring hospital treatment, after a rocket struck a base in the east of the village of Ramyah near the border with *******, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said. The severity of their injuries is unknown.

Unifil also said a base in Shama was damaged by rocket ***** with “non-state actors within Lebanon” most likely responsible. There were no injuries.

The ******** Defense Forces (IDF) which is staging a ground invasion of southern Lebanon against Hezbollah, blamed the Lebanese armed group for both incidences of rocket *****. Hezbollah has not commented.

Also on Tuesday, a Unifil patrol was fired at while the group passed through a road northeast of the village of Khirbat Silim, with no injuries reported.

In a statement posted to social media, Unifil condemned the attacks on its people and infrastructure.

“The pattern of regular attacks – direct or indirect – against peacekeepers must end immediately,” the statement said.

“Any ******* against the peacekeepers is a flagrant violation of international laws and resolution 1701, which forms the basis of Unifil’s current mandate.”

Under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between ******* and Hezbollah, the UN was meant to create an area in the south free of armed forces other than those of the Lebanese army.

However ******* accuses Unifil of having turned a ****** eye to the growth of Hezbollah, which now outpowers the official Lebanese army. Hezbollah is proscribed as a ********** organisation by *******, the ***, US and other countries.

Tensions between ******* and the UN over its peacekeeping operations in southern Lebanon have escalated in recent months, with ******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for the forces to pull out of “combat areas”.

A Unifil spokesman in Geneva said UN peacekeepers were seeing increased levels of *********, with “huge, shocking” destruction across the blue line – the UN-recognised boundary that separates ******* and Lebanon.

*******’s stated goal in launching a ground invasion and escalating air strikes on Hezbollah targets is to allow the return of about 60,000 residents who have been displaced from communities in the country’s north because of Hezbollah’s rocket *****.

The Lebanese group launched its campaign the day after the ****** attacks on southern ******* last year, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

In the past year, *******’s attacks in Lebanon have ******* more than 3,840 people and wounded nearly 15,000 others, according to the Lebanese health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

On Tuesday the Lebanese army said three of its soldiers had been ******* in an ******** strike on an army centre in the town of Safarand. Seventeen other people including nearby civilians were wounded in the strike, the health ministry said.

******** attacks have displaced more than one million people, putting more pressure on a country that was already struggling to cope after years of a severe economic crisis.

Hezbollah’s own attacks have ******* at least 31 soldiers and 45 civilians inside *******, ******** authorities say. Another 45 ******** soldiers have been ******* fighting in southern Lebanon.

The ******** military has destroyed large parts of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and ******* many of its leaders, but the group continues to carry out daily attacks, although not with the same intensity.

Efforts for a ceasefire between ******* and Hezbollah have intensified, with Lebanon’s government due to

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