Israel accused of firing on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon
Israeli forces have been accused of firing on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, prompting calls for Israel to stop its “aggressive behaviour” against international troops.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said that Israeli forces fired on its peacekeepers a day earlier in the country’s south, urging Israel’s army to “cease aggressive behaviour”.
It is the latest such incident reported by the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL acts as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon and has been working with Lebanon’s army to support a year-old truce between Israel and militant group Hezbollah.
“Yesterday, peacekeepers in vehicles patrolling the Blue Line were fired upon by IDF (Israeli army) soldiers in a Merkavatank,” a UNIFIL statement said, referring to the de facto border.
“One ten-round burst of machinegun fire was fired above the convoy, and four further ten-round bursts were fired nearby,” the statement said.
It said that both the peacekeepers and the Israeli tank were in Lebanese territory at the time of the incident and that the Israeli military had been informed of the location and timing of the peacekeeping patrol in advance.
“Peacekeepers asked the IDF to stop firing through UNIFIL’s liaison channels … Fortunately, no one was injured,” it said.
Last month UNIFIL said Israeli soldiers shot at its troops in the south, while Israel’s military said it mistook blue helmets for “suspects” and fired warning shots.
In October, UNIFIL said one of its members was wounded by an Israeli grenade dropped near a UN position in the country’s south, the third incident of its kind in just over a month.
“Attacks on or near peacekeepers are serious violations of (UN) Security Council Resolution 1701,” UNIFIL said on Wednesday, referring to the 2006 resolution that formed the basis of the November 2024 truce.
“We call on the IDF to cease aggressive behaviour and attacks on or near peacekeepers working to rebuild stability along the Blue Line,” the peacekeepers said.
Israel carries out regular attacks on Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting sites and operatives belonging to Hezbollah, which it accuses of rearming.
It has also kept troops in five south Lebanon areas it deems strategic.
On Saturday, a UN Security Council delegation visiting Lebanon urged all parties to uphold the ceasefire.
It emphasised that the “safety of peacekeepers must be respected and that they must never be targeted”, after gunmen on mopeds attacked UNIFIL personnel last week.
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HAMAS ALLEGEDLY HID BABY FORMULA
Hamas hid tons of baby formula to damage Israel with starvation claims, Palestinian activist says
Hamas hid tons of baby formula and nutritional shakes meant for kids inside a warehouse to allow Gazans to starve and further its claims of widespread famine to undermine Israel, a US-based Palestinian activist claimed.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an anti-Hamas activist, accused the terror group of hoarding food meant for infants and young children to purposefully increase starvation in Gaza and damage the public perception of Israel.
Footage shared by Alkhatib on social media shows the inside of the alleged Gaza warehouse with hundreds of packages of baby formula and nutritional shakes.
“During the worst of the days of the hunger crisis in Gaza in the past six months, Hamas deliberately hid literal tons of infant formula and nutritional shakes for children by storing them in clandestine warehouses belonging to the Gaza Ministry of Health,” Alkhatib wrote on X.
During the worst of the days of the hunger crisis in Gaza in the past six months, Hamas deliberately hid literal tons of infant formula and nutritional shakes for children by storing them in clandestine warehouses belonging to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
— Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (@afalkhatib) December 9, 2025
The goal, as I said… pic.twitter.com/pANo9uHfAb
“The goal, as I said then, was to worsen the hunger crisis and initiate a disaster as part of the terror group’s famine narrative in a desperate effort to stop Israel’s onslaught against Gaza and force the return of the UN’s aid distribution mechanism, and away from the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF),” he added.
Warnings of looming famine inside Gaza were raised earlier this year after a temporary ceasefire broke down in March.
Israel blocked humanitarian aid from entering the Strip as a result.
In the following months, images of widespread starvation shocked the world, with the US directly getting involved and setting up the GHF to distribute food inside Gaza.
The program, however, was mired with controversy over near-daily shootings and deaths around the distribution centres, with Hamas directly warning Palestinians not to go to the GHF sites.
During this time, Alkhatib accused Hamas of taking advantage of the hunger crisis and using Palestinians as collateral in its fight against Israel.
Alkhatib, who advocates for peace and a two-state solution, said Hamas needs to be held accountable for its role in the destruction and death in the Gaza Strip.
“You can have compassion for the real suffering of the Palestinian civilians of Gaza, and demand Israeli action to facilitate aid entry into the coastal enclave, while still holding Hamas accountable for its part in causing a hunger and starvation crisis in the first place,” he added.
Despite widespread reporting on the hunger in Israel, officials in the Jewish state have long denied allegations that its war was facilitating a famine. Israel had instead blamed Hamas looting for causing pockets of hunger.
There has been little evidence that Hamas was behind the widespread looting of aid trucks entering Gaza, with a UN Office for Project Services report over the chaotic summer finding that armed gangs were behind the thefts.
Meanwhile, malnutrition among pregnant and breastfeeding women in the Gaza Strip is having a “devastating domino effect” on thousands of newborns, the United Nations warned.
UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, flagged an alarming surge in the number of babies born weighing less than 2.5 kilograms in the Palestinian territory.
“Malnourished mothers” give birth to underweight or premature babies, who either “die … or survive, only to face malnutrition themselves or potential lifelong medical complications”, UNICEF spokeswoman Tess Ingram told a press briefing in Geneva, speaking from central Gaza.
She added that low birth weight infants were about 20 times more likely to die than infants of normal weight.
Ingram said that in October, UNICEF treated 8,300 pregnant and breastfeeding women for acute malnutrition, noting that there was no discernible malnutrition among this group before October 2023.
UNICEF said the number of babies dying on their first day had risen from an average of 27 in 2022 to 47 between July and September this year.
“At least 165 children are reported to have died painful, preventable deaths related to malnutrition during the war,” said Ingram.
HAMAS SAYS NO GAZA TRUCE SECOND PHASE
Hamas said the Gaza ceasefire plan cannot proceed to its second phase as long as Israeli “violations” persist and called on mediators to pressure Israel to respect the agreement.
The US-sponsored ceasefire, in effect since October 10, halted the war that began after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
But it remains fragile as Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost daily of breaches.
Meanwhile, an Israeli official said that authorities would allow the Allenby crossing on the Israeli-controlled border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank to reopen to aid trucks destined for Gaza for the first time since late September.
Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran accused Israel of failing to respect the Gaza ceasefire deal, noting that under its terms, Israel should have reopened the Rafah crossing with Egypt and increased the volume of aid entering the territory.
He urged the mediators, who include Egypt, Qatar and the United States, to pressure Israel “to complete the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement”.
The first phase of the truce stipulates that significantly more aid enter Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he expects the second phase of the deal to begin soon but Badran said it could not start “as long as the occupation (Israel) continues its violations”.
In the announcement of the opening of Allenby crossing, the Israeli official said in a statement that “aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security, following a thorough security inspection”.
Israel closed the crossing in the Jordan Valley, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September.
Israel mostly reopened the crossing to travellers a few days later, but not to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, which has been left devastated by more than two years of war.
Under the initial steps of the ceasefire plan, Israeli troops withdrew to positions behind a so-called “Yellow Line” in Gaza, though they remain in control of more than half of the territory.
Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, was quoted as saying that the demarcation line was the “new border line”.
Badran slammed Zamir’s comments. “The statements … clearly reveal the criminal occupation’s lack of commitment to the ceasefire agreement,” he said.
The second stage of the truce plan concerns disarming Hamas, the further withdrawal of Israeli forces as a transitional authority is established, and the deployment of an international stabilisation force.
Israel has said the next phase cannot begin until the body of the last Gaza captive, the Israeli Ran Gvili, is handed over.
A final goal of the agreement is the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in phases if certain conditions are met.
Hamas has said it is ready to hand over its weapons to the government of a future Palestinian state on the condition that the Israeli occupation ends.
ISRAEL RAIDS UN COMPOUND IN JERUSALEM
The chief of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees denounced the Israeli authorities’ seizure of assets from its east Jerusalem compound on Monday, which police told AFP was part of a debt-collection operation.
“Israeli police accompanied by municipal officials forcibly entered the UNRWA compound in East Jerusalem”, Philippe Lazzarini said on X.
With trucks and forklifts, the authorities took “furniture, IT equipment and other property”, and the compound’s United Nations flag was replaced with an Israeli one, Lazzarini added.
Lazzarini has been declared persona non grata by Israeli authorities, who banned his agency from operating inside the country early this year.
Israeli police told AFP in a statement that the seizures were “carried out by the Jerusalem municipality as part of a debt-collection procedure”.
“Police are present to secure the municipality’s activity,” the statement said. Jerusalem police spokesman Dean Elsdunne told AFP that the debt collection was related to the Arnona, an Israeli residence tax that covers municipal services.
But Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the West Bank and east Jerusalem, disputed that assessment.
“There is no debt because the United Nations – and UNRWA is part of the United Nations and is a UN agency – is not required to pay any kind of taxes of that kind under international law and under the law that Israel itself has adopted,” he said.
Under a 1946 convention, the UN and its assets must not be taxed by host countries.
The compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem has been empty of UNRWA staff since January, when the law banning its operations took effect after a months-long battle over its work in the Gaza Strip.
Israel had accused UNRWA of providing cover for Hamas militants, and the legislation also forbids contact between the agency and Israeli officials.
Though the ban applies in east Jerusalem due to its annexation by Israel, the agency still operates in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
“Whatever action taken domestically, the compound retains its status as a UN premises, immune from any form of interference,” Lazzarini said.
TRUMP TO HOST NETANYAHU FOLLOWING SECRET MEETING
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump in America on December 29, his office has confirmed.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, Mr Netanyahu will be in the US from December 28 through January 4.
This means Mr Netanyahu will likely be on the guest list for Mr Trump’s famed New Year’s Eve bash at Mar-a-Lago.
It comes as secret trilateral talks between the US, Israel and Qatar were reportedly held in New York over the weekend.
Axios reports the talks, which have not been confirmed by any of the nations involved, were held in order to smooth tensions which have existed since Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha during ceasefire talks in September.
White House envoy Steve Witkoff is hosting the talks, according to the outlet, with Israel represented by Mossad spy chief David Barnea and Qatar by an unnamed senior official.
ISRAEL KILLS TWO IN WEST BANK AFTER ALLEGED RAMMING ATTACK
Israel’s military said that its forces killed two males in the occupied West Bank after what it described as an attempted ramming attack, with the Palestinian Authority identifying the deceased as a 17- and 55-year-old.
The Ramallah-based health ministry named the two victims as Ahmad Khalil Al-Rajabi, 17, and Ziad Jabara Abu Dawoud, 55, after the incident in the Bab al-Zawiya area in the city of Hebron.
The older man was a sanitation worker, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The Israeli army said the shooting took place after an attempted ramming attack against its troops stationed at a checkpoint.
“A terrorist accelerated toward (Israeli) soldiers during an operational activity at a security checkpoint in Hebron. The soldiers responded by firing at the terrorist in the vehicle and he was eliminated,” the army told AFP.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them militants, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.
At least 44 Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.
— with AFP
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Originally published as Israel accused of firing on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon
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