Middle East crisis live: European leaders ‘outraged’ over Israeli attacks on UN peacekeepers

Sirens have been heard in several areas in central Israel on Friday night.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said sirens sounded regarding a “hostile aircraft infiltration” on Friday.

It added that details are under review.

The leaders of France, Italy and Spain have released a joint statement condemning the recent targeting of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon by the Israeli military.

These attacks were “unjustifiable” and constitute a “serious violation of the obligations of Israel” under humanitarian international law, the statement said. It went on to say:

We recall that all peacekeepers must be protected and reiterate our praise for the continued and indispensable commitment of Unifil troops/personnel in this very challenging context.

France, Italy and Spain make up the largest European contributors to Unifil in terms of personnel.

In the joint statement, they called for an immediate ceasefire and said they counted on “Israel’s commitment to the security of UN and bilateral peacekeeping missions in Lebanon as well as international organisations active in the region”.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières has said that thousands of Palestinians are trapped in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, including five of its staff who are “fearing for their lives”.

Israeli forces issued evacuation orders for Jabalia camp on earlier this week “while carrying out attacks at the same time, preventing people from leaving the area safely,” the medical charity said on Friday.

“Nobody is allowed to get in or out – anyone who tries is getting shot,” MSF project coordinator Sarah Vuylsteke said.

Haydar, an MSF driver trapped in Jabalia camp, said:

We were staying at the Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, but they bombed it. About 20 people were killed. I don’t know what to do, at any moment we could die. People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave.

The charity called on Israeli forces to stop forced displacements and to stop the “all-out war on the people of Gaza”.

Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini said the UN relief agency “has never, ever been as much under assault and attack”. He told Reuters:

A year ago, it was primarily a financial existential threat, but today it’s a combination of a political and financial threat. 2025 will be, again, a difficult year

Unrwa, one of the UN’s largest agencies, has 13,000 staff working in Gaza and more than 30,000 in the region providing health and educational facilities to Palestinian refugees.

In July, the Israeli parliament gave preliminary approval to a bill that would declare Unrwa a “terrorist organisation”. Israeli leaders have accused Unrwa staff of collaborating with Hamas in Gaza, leading to many western donors to suspend funding.

Lazzarini has previously accused Israel’s government of campaigning to drive Unrwa out of existence, warning that it would “devastating consequences” for the UN and the Palestinian cause.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has confirmed it was responsible for wounding two UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Friday.

The UN peacekeepers were injured by an Israeli strike near their observation tower in south Lebanon, after Israeli forces “identified an immediate threat” and “responded with fire toward the threat”, according to the IDF. Their statement continues:

An initial examination indicates that during the incident, a hit was identified on a Unifil post, located approximately 50 meters (yards) from the source of the threat, resulting in the injury of two Unifil personnel.

The watchtower that came under Israeli fire on Friday is located at the mission’s main base in Naqoura.

As we reported earlier, Unifil said an Israeli bulldozer had also knocked over barriers at UN positions near the Blue Line denoting the frontier between Lebanon and Israel, while tanks had moved into the vicinity.

The IDF said it had instructed Unifil “to enter into protected spaces and remain there” hours before the incident.

The IDF statement came shortly after the military said it was “conducting a thorough review” to determine details of attacks on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, after the four mission members were injured.

A US-made munition was used in an Israeli strike on central Beirut that killed 22 people and wounded 117, according to an analysis of shrapnel found by the Guardian at the scene of the attack.

The strike on Thursday night hit an apartment complex in the densely populated neighbourhood of Basta, central Beirut, levelling the apartment building and destroying cars and the interiors of nearby residences.

It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon’s capital city since fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started a year ago.

The Guardian found remnants of a US-manufactured joint direct attack munition (Jdam) in the rubble of the collapsed apartment building on Friday afternoon. Jdams are guidance kits built by the US aerospace company Boeing that attach to large “dumb bombs” ranging up to 2,000lbs (900kg), converting them into GPS-guided bombs.

The weapons remnant was verified by the crisis, conflict and arms division of Human Rights Watch and a former US military bomb technician.

US defense secretary Lloyd Austin said he spoke to Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday evening and urged “ensuring the safety of UNIFIL forces.”

Austin added on X:

“I urged ensuring the safety of UNIFIL forces and coordinating efforts to pivot from military operations to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible. I made clear that the United States is well postured to defend US personnel, partners, and allies against attacks from Iran and Iranian-backed partners and proxies. Minister Gallant and I reiterated our commitment to preventing any actor from exploiting tensions or expanding the conflict in the region. We also discussed urgent steps to address the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

The conversation between Austin and Gallant comes after the UN said Israeli forces fired on two UNIFIL peacekeepers stationed in southern Lebanon and “repeatedly hit” UNIFIL’s Naqoura headquarters. The two peacekeepers remain hospitalised, the UN said on Thursday.

The UN added:

“We remind the IDF and all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times.”

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza last October and most recently Lebanon, nearly 300 humanitarian aid workers, including over two-thirds being UN staff, have been killed during the conflict.

In May, the Human Rights Watch released a report in which it stated that Israeli forces are attacking known aid worker locations in the region.

“This pattern of attacks despite proper notification of Israeli authorities raises serious questions about Israel’s commitment and capacity to comply with international humanitarian law, which some countries, including the UK, rely on to continue to license arms exports that end up in Israel,” the HRW added.

Here’s a look at where things currently stand:

• The Lebanese Red Cross said it deployed ambulances and volunteers “within minutes to treat and transport the injured, and search and rescue teams worked throughout the night” after strikes in Beirut on Thursday evening. Speaking from Beirut, Gabriel Karlsson, the British Red Cross Middle East manager, said that the Lebanese Red Cross were one of the first on the scene responding.

• Dozens of Palestinians have been injured by Israeli quadcopter fire at a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, the civil defence said on Friday. Reuters reports that the civil defence said its crews were transferring the injured to a nearby hospital.

• More than 42,126 Palestinians have been killed and 98,117 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday. Meanwhile, two million survivors have been forcibly displaced across the narrow strip amid shortages in food, water and medical supplies due to Israeli aid restrictions.

• German chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit Turkey next week to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with the escalating conflict in the Middle East and migration on the agenda, German officials said on Friday. Scholz will hold talks with Erdogan on 19 October in Istanbul, followed by a press conference, government spokesperson Wolfgang Buechner told a media briefing in Berlin.

• US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Friday there was deep concern in Asia about the prospect of conflict spreading in the Middle East, as the U.N. chief called for everything possible to be done to avoid “all-out war” in Lebanon. Reuters reports that the conflict in the Middle East was a central issue during Friday’s east Asia summit in Laos.

• Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez on Friday urged the international community to stop selling weapons to Israel as he condemned attacks by Israel’s armed forces against the United Nations’ peacekeeping force in Lebanon, reports Reuters. Israeli forces fired at an observation post used by UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Friday, injuring two, a UN source said, the third day in a row peacekeepers have reported Israeli fire at their positions as Israel wages war on Hezbollah.

• UN officials voiced concerns on Friday that an Israeli offensive and evacuation orders in northern Gaza might affect the second phase of its polio vaccination campaign scheduled to start next week, Reuters reports. Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month, after a baby was partially paralysed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

Two UN soldiers in southern Lebanon have been injured after the United Nations Interim Force (Unifil) headquarters in Naquora were affected by explosions for the second time in 48 hours, the international peacekeeping force has said.

One injured peacekeeper was taken to a hospital in Tyre, while the second is being treated in Naqoura.

Unifil described the attacks as a “grave violation of international humanitarian law” detailing an Israeli Defence Force attempt to take down permiter walls of one of its posts in the buffer zone separating southern Lebanon and Israel.

Unifil said in a statement:

Several T-walls (concrete blast barriers) at our UN position 1-31, near the blue line in Labbouneh, fell when an IDF caterpillar hit the perimeter and IDF tanks moved in the proximity of the UN position. Our peacekeepers remained at the location, and a Unifil quick reaction force was dispatched to assist and reinforce the position.

These incidents put again UN peacekeepers, who are serving in south Lebanon at the request of the security council under resolution 1701 (2006), at very serious risks.

This is a serious development, and Unifil reiterates that the safety and security of UN personnel and property must be guaranteed and that the inviolability of UN premises must be respected at all times.

Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and security council resolution 1701 (2006).”

It follows an attack yesterday which saw two Indonesians injured.

The Irish Defence Forces confirmed all its troops were safe and had “not been directly affected by incoming fire” and all necessary protection measures were being “diligently observed” at UN post 6-52 where it is in command.

The Israeli military is conducting a thorough review after being notified that two UN peacekeepers were “inadvertently” hurt in southern Lebanon, the Israeli army said in a statement on Friday, according to Reuters.

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Friday warned of “very serious risks” for their blue helmets after explosions wounded two mission members near the Israeli border, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Israel and Hezbollah have been clashing in south Lebanon since last week when Israel announced “targeted” incursions into Lebanon against the Lebanese militant group, which is backed by Iran.

Friday’s incidents came after peacekeeping mission Unifil said its positions had been “repeatedly hit” and two Indonesian blue helmets were injured on Thursday, sparking a wave of international condemnation.

On Friday morning, “Unifil’s Naqura headquarters was affected by explosions for the second time in the last 48 hours. Two peacekeepers were injured after two explosions occurred close to an observation tower,” the peacekeeping mission said, reports AFP.

A Unifil spokesperson said the injured peacekeepers are Sri Lankan.

In addition, several blast walls “at our UN position 1-31, near the blue line in Labbouneh, fell when an IDF Caterpillar hit the perimeter and IDF tanks moved in the proximity of the UN position”.

“These incidents put again UN peacekeepers, who are serving in south Lebanon at the request of the securitycouncil under resolution 1701 (2006), at very serious risks,” Unifil said in a statement.

Earlier, Lebanon’s foreign ministry said the Israeli army targeted “watchtowers and the main Unifil base in Ras Naqura, and on the Sri Lankan battalion’s base, which led to a number of wounded”.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said an Israeli “Merkava tank targeted one of the Unifil towers on the main road linking Tyre and Naqura”, wounding the Sri Lankan personnel.

Hezbollah said on Friday said it fired rockets at Israel troops in Ras Naqura, reports AFP.

In the earlier incident, on Thursday, Unifil said an Israeli tank fired towards a watchtower at the mission’s Naqura headquarters, hitting it and causing two peacekeepers to fall, with injuries.

The incident sparked condemnation from European members of the mission as well as China.

On Thursday, Israel’s military said its forces had opened fire in the area of the UN base, after telling the peacekeepers to stay protected, as Hezbollah fighters were operating in the area.

Human Rights Watch on Friday called for a UN inquiry “on Israeli attacks on peacekeepers” in Lebanon.