Israeli attack kills 18 people in northern Lebanon as Hezbollah steps up attacks | Hezbollah News

According to the Lebanese Red Cross, at least 18 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in northern Lebanon.

“Eighteen dead and four injured in the attack on Aito,” the Red Cross said on Monday, referring to the village of Aitou in the Christian-majority Zgharta district.

The official Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Israeli attack targeted a “residential apartment” in the village.

According to NNA, it is the first time the area has been attacked in a year of hostilities between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is mainly present in the south of the country and in the southern suburbs of Beirut. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Videos from Lebanese media showed a large cloud of smoke rising from the hilly village, several destroyed cars parked next to a badly damaged building while people tried to remove bodies from under rubble and trees.

The attack came a day after a Hezbollah drone strike on a military base in northern Israel killed four soldiers and injured dozens more.

It was Hezbollah’s deadliest known attack since the Israeli military escalated the war in recent weeks, dramatically expanding the bombing of Lebanon and launching a ground offensive in the south. According to Lebanese authorities, more than a million people were forced to leave their homes as a result of the fighting.

On Monday, Hezbollah said its fighters fought with Israeli soldiers in the southern Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab. According to a statement, Hezbollah fighters targeted an armored personnel carrier with a guided missile. The vehicle caught fire and soldiers inside were killed and wounded, it said, without providing evidence.

The Iran-aligned group also said it fired rockets at the city of Haifa in northern Israel. The Israeli army said most of the projectiles were intercepted.

Sirens were also activated in the central Israeli areas of Sharon and Wadi Ara on Monday. A military statement said all the rockets were fired from Lebanon and were shot down by the country’s air defenses.

Separately, the Israeli military also claimed on Monday that it had killed Muhammad Kamal Naim, commander of the anti-tank system of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, in an airstrike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

Attacks on UN peacekeepers “completely unacceptable”

Meanwhile, the European Union has joined the chorus of international condemnation of several Israeli attacks on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in recent days.

“Such attacks against UN peacekeepers constitute a serious violation of international law and are completely unacceptable,” it said in a statement.

“We urgently await explanations and a thorough investigation by the Israeli authorities into the attacks against UNIFIL, which plays a fundamental role in stability in southern Lebanon.”

The force, which includes around 9,500 soldiers from around 50 nations under the leadership of a Spanish general, has reported several Israeli attacks in recent days that have injured five of its troops, sparking widespread criticism.

UNIFIL said on Sunday that Israeli tanks had entered one of its positions, the latest in a series of violations and attacks by Israeli forces on peacekeepers.

Israeli officials have called on UN peacekeepers to abandon their positions, but Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday that there would be “no withdrawal” of UNIFIL from southern Lebanon. He called on the EU to respond to requests from Spain and Ireland to suspend a free trade agreement because of Israel’s relentless attacks on Lebanon and Gaza.

The Foreign Minister of the Republic of Ireland, Micheal Martin, also accused Israel of undermining the United Nations and its peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

“As far as the Middle East and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statements regarding the United Nations, Israel is essentially now undermining the United Nations and the United Nations peacekeeping force with the very rules-based international order,” Martin said.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Hasbaiyya in southern Lebanon, said Sunday’s attack on the UNIFIL base was “extremely serious.”

“They blew up a gate with a tank and then fired bombs of a chemical nature – as the injuries to the peacekeepers suggest,” Khan said.

He added: “Abolishing an observer force would blind the international community to what is happening. This is very worrying for the Lebanese army and the United Nations.”

Israel and Hezbollah began an almost daily firefight in October 2023, after Israel began its sustained assault on Gaza. According to Lebanese authorities, more than 2,100 people have been killed in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, mostly in recent weeks since Israel escalated its attacks.