Israel marks Yom Kippur amid a firestorm over attacks on Lebanon

As the holy day began after sunset on Friday, Israel faced a diplomatic backlash for a “hit” on a United Nations peacekeeping position in Lebanon earlier in the day.

Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were injured in the second such incident in two days, the UNIFIL mission said on Friday.

The military said Israeli soldiers responded with fire to an “immediate threat” about 50 meters (yards) from the UNIFIL post.

As Israel faced harsh condemnation from UN chief António Guterres and Western allies, the military promised a “thorough review.”

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, meanwhile, warned Israelis to stay away from Israeli army sites in residential areas in the north of the country, claiming the military was “using the homes” of locals and maintaining military bases in residential areas.

Hezbollah has repeatedly said it fired rockets at areas in northern Israel, where sirens blared in several locations early Saturday.

UNIFIL peacekeepers have been on the front lines of the war between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally from the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The latest incident came a day after two Indonesian soldiers were injured when tank fire hit a guard tower, according to UNIFIL.

Sean Clancy, the Irish military’s chief of staff, said he did not believe Israel’s explanation of Friday’s incident.

“So from a military perspective, this is not a coincidence,” said Clancy, whose country has troops in UNIFIL.

Guterres condemned the shooting as “unbearable” and “a breach of international humanitarian law,” while the British government said it was “appalled” by reports of people being wounded.

US President Joe Biden said on Friday he was “absolutely” calling on Israel to cease fire on UN peacekeepers, while the leaders of France, Spain and Italy expressed their “outrage” in a joint statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron renewed his call for an end to Israel’s arms exports to Gaza and Lebanon, saying U.N. peacekeepers had been “deliberately targeted.”

The incidents came more than two weeks into Israel’s war with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, in which Israeli warplanes have carried out extensive attacks on the militants’ strongholds since September 23, hitting several civilian areas and leaving ground troops beyond border were stationed.

Israeli and Hezbollah forces fought along the border on Friday, with Israeli airstrikes reported in southern and eastern Lebanon.

It was a tense start to Yom Kippur. From sunset on Friday until nightfall on Saturday, Israeli markets will be closed, flights suspended and public transport suspended as observant Jews fast and pray on the Day of Atonement.

Diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to fighting in Lebanon and Gaza have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the U.N. Security Council to adopt a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire “ demands.

Heads of state and government from nine European Mediterranean countries also called for an end to the fighting in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip on Friday.

Mikati said that only the Lebanese military and peacekeepers should be deployed in the south of the country – the core of existing Security Council Resolution 1701 – and “Hezbollah is united on this issue.”

US special envoy Amos Hochstein said the US would work “continuously” towards a ceasefire.

“We want the whole conflict to end,” he told the Lebanese television station LBC from Washington.

The Lebanese military said two of its soldiers were killed in an Israeli attack on one of its positions in southern Lebanon on Friday.

Hezbollah is heavily armed and controls large swathes of Lebanon, and successive Lebanese governments have failed to subdue it.

The movement also fought against Israeli troops during the last Israeli invasion in 2006.

In Beirut, residents of a central part of the capital hit by two Israeli airstrikes on Thursday evening recovered their belongings and cleared debris from the destroyed streets.

“There are a lot of families living here,” said Bilal Othman, who explained that many people had sought refuge there from southern Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold that has been hit by Israeli attacks since last month.

“Are you telling us that there is no longer a safe place in this country?” he said.

The Israeli strikes appeared to target Hezbollah’s security chief Wafiq Safa, a source close to Hezbollah told AFP.

Lebanon’s health ministry said 22 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the attacks.

Safa was close to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on southern Beirut last month.

After the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,206 people, mostly civilians, died, Hezbollah began firing on Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in captivity.

Israel’s military operation has wreaked havoc in the Gaza Strip, killing 42,126 people, mostly civilians, in the Hamas-controlled area, according to the Health Ministry.

Late Friday, Gaza’s Civil Defense Authority reported that 30 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy artillery shelling, explosions and gunfire further south in Gaza City’s Zeitoun district on Saturday.

The co-leader of a group of Japanese atomic bomb survivors that won the Nobel Peace Prize said the situation of children in Gaza reminded him of the plight of survivors after World War II.

“It’s like Japan 80 years ago,” said Toshiyuki Mimaki in Tokyo.

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