Middle East latest UN peacekeepers find explosives near UN base in southern Lebanon

Rome, Oct 14 (AP) A patrol of the Italian contingent of the UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon found explosive devices positioned along the road leading to a UN base.
     The Italian Defence Ministry says a team of bomb disposal experts secured the area close to Forward Operating Base UNP 1-32A, but they couldn't complete the clearance operation because one of the devices ignited, causing a fire. No one was injured.
     The ministry says UNIFIL — the UN peacekeepers — and Lebanese authorities are “investigating the dynamics of the events and tracing the perpetrators of the potential threat”.
    
     Israeli military says it found a huge underground Hezbollah compound in southern Lebanon
     TEL AVIV — The Israeli military says its forces operating in southern Lebanon uncovered an underground compound stretching 800 metres (half a mile) that served as a command centre for Hezbollah's special forces.
     A video released by the army Monday shows weapons and ammunitions that it says are stored inside the tunnel, including helicopter-fired missiles and mortar shells. It also shows motorcycles and living quarters containing beds and a kitchen stocked with food and supplies.
     The army's chief spokesman, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, says the tunnel is a few kilometres from Israel's border, and that the weapons stocked there were to be used in a raid on northern Israel.
     Israeli leaders and its military have for years accused Hezbollah of hiding weapons and fighters inside homes and other civilian structures in border villages.
     The army has mobilised thousands of troops for what it says is an ongoing ground operation to dismantle Hezbollah's military infrastructure along the border.
     At least 1,700 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million displaced in the past month. Around 60 Israelis have been killed in Hezbollah strikes in the past year. Israel says it wants to drive the militant group away from shared borders so some 60,000 displaced Israelis can return to their homes.
    
     Israel says it allowed 30 trucks of aid into northern Gaza, the first in 2 weeks
     JERUSALEM — Israel says it has allowed 30 trucks of aid to reach northern Gaza, breaking a 2-week stretch during which the UN says aid levels fell precipitously in the area.
     The Israeli body managing aid crossings into the territory, COGAT, said Monday that 30 trucks carrying flour and food from the UN's main food agency travelled through the northern crossing after inspection. The UN has not confirmed the statement.
     For the last two weeks, nearly no food, water, fuel or supplies have reached the north, the UN says, with both major crossings closed since Oct 1.
     The cutoff, combined with a renewed Israeli offensive in the area, has raised fears that Israel is pursuing an extreme plan proposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would besiege the northern third of the strip in an effort to prompt a Hamas surrender.
     COGAT says 30 trucks were transferred into Gaza on Sunday through a crossing known as “Gate 96,” north of the strip, though it was unclear where the aid went because, the UN says, trucks travelling through that crossing do not go directly to the north.
    
     Rocket fire from Lebanon sets off sirens in Tel Aviv and other locations
     TEL AVIV — Rocket fire from Lebanon set off sirens in Tel Aviv and over 180 communities across central Israel on Monday.
     The Israeli military says three projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon and all were intercepted. Israel's police say debris from an interception fell in a city south of Tel Aviv but there were no reports of injuries or significant damage.
     Rocket attacks on northern Israel meanwhile continued unabated, with the army saying that approximately 90 projectiles were identified by the afternoon. Most were intercepted or fell in open areas.
     A 50-year-old woman was lightly injured and heavy damage was caused in a volley of 15 rockets on the northern town of Karmiel, the military and the Israeli rescue service said.
     Hezbollah has fired more than 12,000 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel since the start of the hostilities one year ago, according to the army. Most of the fire has been directed at the north of the country, but attacks have reached deeper into Israel and become more frequent since the conflict escalated in mid-September.
     On Sunday, a Hezbollah drone attack on a military base in the city of Binyamina killed four soldiers and wounded 61.
    
     Israeli military details messages and calls made in Lebanon urging evacuation
     JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has sent out 1.7 million text messages, 3.4 million voice messages and made 3,700 voice calls notifying civilians in Lebanon to evacuate as it continues with its ground invasion there.
     Some 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since last October, more than three-quarters of them in the past month, according to the Lebanese government. At least 1.2 million people have been displaced — the vast majority since Israel ramped up airstrikes across the country last month.
     Israel says it is making an effort to communicate with civilians ahead of airstrikes, but people interviewed by the the Associated Press say that they don't receive the warnings -- or that they come in the middle of the night or don't adequately cover the area that is struck.
     An Israeli intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said Monday that there are 60 Arabic speakers working to call village leaders -- from doctors and governors to teachers -- to urge their communities to evacuate.
     The official said that the military makes the calls to village leaders hours before airstrikes occur, and that the military notifies residents in Beirut before their buildings are struck.
     Lebanese say the orders often come at very short notice, and it's not clear where people can go or when they will be able to return home. Most of the villages along the border with Lebanon have suffered extreme damage and emptied out since the start of Israel's ground invasion. Beirut's southern suburbs, too, have seen an exodus.
     One quarter of Lebanese territory is now under Israeli military displacement orders, according to the UN's human rights division.
    
     Palestinians shot dead in West Bank
     RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
     Commenting on the incident, the Israeli army official said its troops exchanged fire with armed militants during a “counterterrorism” operation Wednesday in the Jenin area, killing one of the gunmen.
     According to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, one of the slain men was 17 years old. Four others were injured by Israeli fire during the raid, it said.
     Violence has flared in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war erupted 12 months ago.
     According to Palestinian Health Ministry data, over 750 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the territory since the war began. The northern West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarem, has seen some of the worst violence.
    
     Israeli defence minister vows forceful response' to a Hezbollah attack on a base
     TEL AVIV — Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant briefed his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on the deadly Hezbollah drone attack on a military base in Israel late Sunday and vowed “a forceful response”.
     The attack near the city of Binyamina killed four soldiers and wounded 61. It was the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon two weeks ago.
     In his talk with Austin, Gallant “highlighted the severity of the attack and the forceful response that would be taken against Hezbollah,” his office said.
     He also “reiterated the measures" taken by the military to coordinate with UNIFIL peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and to avoid harming them, after mounting criticism of Israel for repeatedly firing on UN soldiers.
     Gallant's office said he expressed his appreciation to Austin and the US administration for deciding to send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence battery to Israel “in the coming days”.
    
     At least 18 dead as a strike hits building in northern Lebanon
     BEIRUT — The Lebanese Red Cross says an Israeli airstrike in northern Lebanon has killed at least 18 people.
     The strike hit a small apartment building in the village of Aito on Monday, and was one of the northernmost strikes since Israel invaded Lebanon earlier this month.
     The Hezbollah militant group is mainly present in the south of the country and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
    
     Israeli airstrike hits near an aid convoy in Lebanon
     BEIRUT — Lebanese officials say an Israeli airstrike hit near an aid convoy in Lebanon, wounding a driver and lightly damaging the trucks.
     The humanitarian aid, which reached Beirut on Monday, was marked with the flags of Turkey and the United Arab Emirates as well as the Red Cross insignia.
     Baalbek-Hermel Gov Bachir Khodr, who accompanied the convoy, said the airstrike hit as it was passing through northeastern Lebanon. He shared a picture on the social platform X taken from inside a vehicle showing a large cloud of smoke on the road ahead.
     It was not clear how badly the driver was wounded.
     The Red Cross did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    
     Germany calls on Israel to investigate shelling of peacekeepers
     BERLIN — The German government has sharply criticises the shelling of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and is calling on Israel to clarify what exactly happened.
     A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told reporters in Berlin on Monday that “all parties to the conflict, including the Israeli army, are obliged to direct their combat operations exclusively against military targets of the other party to the conflict.” Spokesman Sebastian Fischer said that a comprehensive investigation is expected and that talks on the matter were being held with the Israeli side.
     The situation in southern Lebanon is causing growing concern, Fischer added, saying that “the shelling of UN peacekeepers and the intrusion into their bases is in no way acceptable,” and that the protection and security of UN troops had top priority.
    
     Iran stops indirect talks with US in Oman
     DUBAI — Iran has stopped indirect talks with the United States in Oman as tensions remain high over a possible Israeli retaliatory strike on Tehran over an earlier missile attack, the Islamic Republic's foreign minister said Monday.
     Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made the comment to Iranian state media while still in Muscat, Oman. The sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula long has been an interlocutor between Iran and the U.S., particularly in the secret talks that birthed Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
     “For the time being, the Muscat process is stopped because of special situation in the region,” Araghchi said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. “We do not see any ground for the talks until we can pass the current crisis.”
     The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
     Iran under new President Masoud Pezeshkian has been signalling it wants to negotiate with the US for sanctions relief. Since then-President Donald Trump pulled America out of the nuclear accord, Tehran has begun enriching uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels and increasing the size of its stockpile. However, US intelligence agencies and officials insist Iran has not begun an effort to build a nuclear weapon.
     Meanwhile, Israel has threatened a major retaliatory strike over Iran's ballistic missile attack earlier this month, the second-such direct assault on Israel by Iran since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
    
     Irish foreign minister says Israel is trying to stop world from seeing what its troops are doing
     BRUSSELS — Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin is accusing Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the United Nations.
     Asked what Israel's aim might be in demanding that UNIFIL peacekeepers leave their bases after a series of attacks, Martin said: “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein.”
     “We cannot have an undermining and a chipping away of the status or the credibility or structures of the United Nations and particularly its peacekeeping forces,” Martin said in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers are meeting.
     “We see what's happening in northern Gaza, for example, in terms of the necessity of eyes and ears on the ground. The world has really no full picture of what's happening in Gaza,” he told reporters.
     Martin added that “Israel is essentially now undermining (not only) the United Nations and the United Nations peacekeeping force, but the very rules based international order, and it needs to step back.”
     He called on his EU counterparts “to stand up now on the side of what's right and proper and moral in terms of humanity”. (AP) SCY
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)