An Israeli drone strike targeted a motorcycle at the Mansouri junction in the Tyre district on Monday morning, killing one person and injuring another.
Earlier in the day, Israeli artillery shelled the outskirts of the town of Shebaa.
Around 2:15 AM on Thursday, an Israeli drone carried out two successive airstrikes on a café and an aluminum workshop located in a building in the town of Yohmor al-Shaqif in the Nabatiyeh district. The strikes caused material damage but no casualties were reported. The targeted site had reportedly been hit in a previous Israeli attack.
The Israeli military announced on Thursday that it carried out an overnight airstrike targeting a Hezbollah military command center in the town of Yohmor in southern Lebanon.
According to the Israeli army, the command center was being used by Hezbollah operatives and was concealed within a civilian building, a tactic the army says highlights the militant group’s “systematic exploitation” of the civilian population to launch attacks on Israel.
The Israeli army stated that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians” ahead of the strike.
It described the use of the site as a “blatant violation” of long-standing understandings between Israel and Lebanon and affirmed that it would “continue to operate in order to remove any threat posed to the State of Israel.”
UNIFIL Patrol Clashes with Residents
A confrontation erupted on Thursday in the southern Lebanese town of Aitit (Tyre district) between local residents and a UNIFIL patrol, after the international force’s vehicle passed through the village without an escort from the Lebanese Army, a move locals said violated established protocols.
According to local sources, residents blocked the patrol’s path and demanded that it halt and turn back. UNIFIL personnel reportedly refused, prompting a heated argument that escalated into a minor scuffle. The situation was eventually defused through the intervention of local actors, who called for calm.
This marks the seventh such confrontation between residents and UNIFIL forces since May.
UNIFIL Explanatory Statement
“A UNIFIL patrol came under attack on Thursday morning in southern Lebanon after being blocked by a group of civilians”, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a statement on Thursday.
The peacekeepers, who were on a planned and pre-coordinated patrol with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in support of the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, were initially approached calmly by a number of individuals in civilian clothes. However, the situation quickly escalated when some began throwing stones at the peacekeepers, prompting them to deploy smoke to disperse the crowd and protect themselves.
The Lebanese Army arrived at the scene and managed to restore calm.
UNIFIL spokesperson, Andrea Tenenti emphasized in the statement that, as confirmed by the Lebanese government and military, the mission’s personnel are authorized to move independently in southern Lebanon to carry out their duties under Resolution 1701. They are not required to be accompanied by LAF troops during patrols.
The UN peacekeeping force condemned the incident, calling it a “serious violation of international law and of Resolution 1701,” and urged the Lebanese authorities to bring those responsible to justice.
UNIFIL reaffirmed its commitment to “impartially monitoring and reporting all violations” of the resolution, as mandated by the UN Security Council and requested by the Lebanese government.
Comments