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| Israeli forces attack UNIFIL headquarters in southern Lebanon |
Israeli forces launched a new attack on the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon on Friday, wounding several Sri Lankan peacekeepers there.
According to the official Lebanese Press Agency, an Israeli Merkava tank struck one of UNIFIL's watchtowers on the Tir-Nakoura highway in front of a Lebanese army checkpoint, wounding a Sri Lankan contingent stationed there.
The newspaper said Israeli artillery struck the main gate of the UNIFIL command center in Nakoura, causing damage there. The UNIFIL command center in Nakoura came under Israeli artillery fire for the second time in three days.
On Thursday, the UN peacekeeping force said that UNIFIL's headquarters in Nakoura and several of its sites had come under repeated Israeli shelling, wounding two soldiers.
As military operations continue in the region, UNIFIL is operating in a difficult environment and the situation remains tense. Israel has conducted massive airstrikes across Lebanon since September 23 against suspected Hezbollah targets, killing at least 1,351 people, wounding more than 3,800 and displacing more than 1.2 million.
The airstrikes are an escalation of cross-border fighting that has been ongoing for a year since Israel and Hezbollah launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 42,000 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them women and children, since last year's Hamas attack.
Amid relentless Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, Israel escalated the conflict in October, despite international warnings that the Middle East is on the brink of a regional war. First victory in ground attack into southern Lebanon.
