The world organisation has warned of a “heightened risk of a full-scale war” along the Lebanon-Israel border where 901 Indian peacekeepers are deployed.

“The UN is deeply concerned at the increase in the intensity of exchanges of fire across the Blue Line yesterday, which heightens the risk of a full-scale war”, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesperson’s office said on Friday.

“Escalation can and must be avoided. We reiterate that the danger of miscalculation leading to a sudden and wider conflagration is real,” it added.

After an Israeli drone killed a senior commander of the Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon on Wednesday, the militia responded by sending a barrage of 100 rockets into Israel.

The well-entrenched Hezbollah, which has the backing of Iran has threatened to continue attacks on Israel in solidarity with Hamas under Israeli assault in Gaza.

The decades-long tensions in the area have intensified since October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, which launched a retribution on Gaza that it controls.

In solidarity with Hamas, Hezbollah said attacks on Israel till there is a ceasefire in Gaza, raising fears of a wider regional conflict.

Civilians have suffered the most from the volley of attacks between Hezbollah and Israel.

About 60,000 Lebanese have reportedly been displaced, and, according to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, about 20,000 Israelis have also been forced to flee the border areas because of the attacks.

“Israel has effectively lost its sovereignty in the northern quadrant of its country because people don’t safe to go to their homes,” he said on Monday underscoring the risk of war.

He added that an agreement reached through diplomacy was needed to end the security risks and ensure that “forces are pulled back.”

The spokesperson’s office also emphasised that a “political and diplomatic solution is the only viable way forward.”

The Indian peacekeepers are a part of the 10,000-strong 49-nation UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) charged by the Security Council to work with Lebanese national forces to keep order in the volatile section known as the Blue Line that separates Lebanon and Israel.

In effect, the mission also acts as a buffer between the two countries at times caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The spokesperson’s office said that the Foreign Affairs Committee of Lebanon’s Parliament visited UNIFIL to express support for the mission and its mandate on Thursday.

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to emphasise “the need for de-escalation across the Blue Line,” it added.

Lebanon’s writ is weak in the region where Hezbollah controls vast tracts of territory.

Mohammad Naameh Nasser, who Israel blamed for rockets into the country, was the second Hezbollah commander killed in less than a month.

Last month another Hezbollah commander, Taleb Abdallah, was killed by Israel in Southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah retaliated with about 150 rockets and drones, but international diplomacy kept it from further escalation.

At another peacekeeping mission in the region, the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) charged with maintaining the ceasefire between Israel and Syria, 202 Indian troops are deployed.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Tehran, Iran:

Iran on Saturday warned that “all Resistance Fronts”, a grouping of Iran and its regional allies, would confront Israel if it attacks Lebanon.

The comment from Iran’s mission to New York comes with fears of a wider regional war involving Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. The two sides have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire since the war in Gaza began.

Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides. Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated”, prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.

In a post on social media platform X, the Iranian mission said it “deems as psychological warfare the Zionist regime’s propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon”.

But, it added, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue. All options, incl. the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table.”

The war in Gaza began in October when Hamas Palestinian operatives attacked southern Israel.

Iran, which backs Hamas, has praised the attack as a success but has denied any involvement.

Alongside Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have repeatedly struck commercial ships in the Red Sea area in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Iran also backs other groups in the region.

The Islamic republic has not recognised Israel since the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s United States-backed shah.

Fears of regional war also soared in April, after an air strike that levelled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Iran hit back with an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13-14.

Iran’s state media later reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan as US media quoted American officials saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival.

Tehran downplayed the reported Israeli raid.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel launched air strikes on Gaza on June 27 after warning Hezbollah, Hamas’s ally in Lebanon, to avoid a large-scale war that would send the neighbouring country “back to the Stone Age”.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant made the comment during a visit to Washington, where he discussed the Gaza war, long-running efforts toward a truce, and ways to avoid a wider regional conflagration.

As cross-border tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have risen, Mr. Gallant stressed that “we do not want war, but we are preparing for every scenario”.

“Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict massive damage in Lebanon if a war is launched,” he said of the Shiite militant group that, like Hamas, is backed by Israel’s arch foe Iran.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded near daily cross-border fire since Hamas launched its October 7 attack that sparked the bloodiest ever Gaza war.

But tensions have surged since Israel said this month that its Lebanon war plans are ready, sparking threats from Hezbollah that, in the event of all-out war, none of Israel would be safe.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Gallant this week that a war with Hezbollah could have “terrible consequences for the Middle East” and urged a diplomatic solution.

UN humanitarian coordinator Martin Griffiths warned that Lebanon was “the flashpoint beyond all flashpoints” and that a full war would be “potentially apocalyptic”.

Germany has joined Canada in advising its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country, reiterating warnings first issued shortly after October 7.

In the latest clashes on Wednesday, Lebanese media reported about 10 Israeli strikes near the border while Hezbollah claimed six attacks against Israeli military positions.

A US official said Washington was engaged in “fairly intensive conversations” with Israel, Lebanon and other actors and believed that no side sought a “major escalation”.

Running in terror

Meanwhile, the Gaza war at the heart of regional tensions ground on, despite comments Sunday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the “intense phase” of the conflict was nearing an end.

Israeli air strikes overnight and early Thursday killed at least five people in Gaza City, said the Hamas-ruled territory’s civil defence agency and Al-Mamdani hospital medics.

One person was killed when a warplane bombed a house in Beit Lahia, paramedics said.

Heavy fighting, artillery shelling and helicopter fire were reported Thursday around northern Gaza’s Shujayia market, as well as approaching Israeli ground vehicles.

Hamas’ press office in Gaza reported “a significant displacement of residents” there and said people “are fleeing to areas of refuge in Gaza City that are already overcrowded”.

An anonymous witness told AFP the situation was “very difficult and frightening in Shujayia after the arrival of occupation (Israeli) vehicles and air fire.

“Residents are running through the streets in terror… a number of wounded and martyrs lie in the streets.”

Shelling also targeted Gaza City, sending plumes of smoke into the sky, and Israeli forces blew up several buildings in far-southern Rafah, witnesses said.

The Israeli military also said it had “attacked terrorists who were in a school complex in Khan Yunis” in the south, where the civil defence agency said it had recovered several bodies.

US officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken have voiced hope a Gaza ceasefire could also lead to a reduction in hostilities on the Lebanese border.

However, months of talks towards a truce and hostage release deal have so far failed as Israel has rejected Hamas demands for a permanent end to fighting and full troop withdrawal.

Beyond anything I’ve seen

The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized about 250 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 42 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,765 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.

The war and siege have triggered a dire humanitarian crisis, with Gaza hospitals struggling to function, and food, drinking water and other essentials hard to come by.

USAID officials said Wednesday that just 1,000 of the 7,000 tonnes of aid shipped from Cyprus to Gaza had been distributed, blaming looting and security problems.

Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is intense, said US doctors and nurses returning from the territory, who reported patients in the few remaining hospitals were dying in large numbers.

One of the volunteer medics, former US army combat surgeon Adam Hamawy, said he had worked in many war-torn and natural disaster-hit countries in the past 30 years.

“But the level of civilian casualties that I experienced was beyond anything I’d seen before,” the 54-year-old told AFP.

“Most of our patients were children under the age of 14,” he said. “This has nothing to do with your political views.”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speaks during a televised address at a memorial service for Taleb Abdallah, a senior field commander in the group who was killed on June 11 alongside three other Hezbollah fighters in an Israeli strike on the south Lebanon village of Jouaiyya, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon on June 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has new weapons and intelligence capabilities that could help it target more critical positions deeper inside Israel in case of an all-out war, the militant group’s leader warned on June 20.

Hassan Nasrallah’s comments came as the monthslong cross-border conflict simmering between Hezbollah and Israel appears to be reaching a boiling point and a day after a top U.S. envoy met Lebanese officials in his latest attempt to ease tensions.

Also read: Hezbollah | The party of God

“We now have new weapons. But I won’t say what they are,” he said in a televised address commemorating a top Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon last week. “When the decision is made, they will be seen on the front lines.”

Hezbollah has used locally made explosive drones for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza last October, as well as surface-to-air missiles against Israeli jets.

Nasrallah said in 2021 that Hezbollah has 100,000 fighters but now he claimed the number is much higher, without elaborating. He also said he has rejected offers from allied countries and militias in the region that could add tens of thousands to his ranks.

A nearly 10-minute-long video allegedly filmed by a Hezbollah surveillance drone and released Tuesday shows parts of Haifa — a city far from the Israel-Lebanon border. Nasrallah in his speech Wednesday said Hezbollah has much more footage — an apparent threat it could reach sites deep in Israel.

Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, visited Israeli air-defense soldiers near the border with Lebanon on Wednesday, saying Israel was aware of Hezbollah’s capabilities demonstrated in the video and has solutions for these threats.

“The enemy only knows a small part of our capabilities and will see them at the needed time,” he said.

Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has been exchanging strikes with Israel almost daily since the war in Gaza erupted on Oct. 7, with the aim to pull Israeli forces away from the embattled Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah’s attacks escalated after Israel expanded its offensive last month into the southern Gaza city of Rafah and spiked further last week after an Israeli strike killed high-ranking Hezbollah commander Taleb Sami Abdullah, the most senior militant killed so far during the Israel-Hamas war.

Also Tuesday, the Israeli army said it has “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon, although the decision to actually launch such an operation would have to come from the country’s political leadership.

The warnings by both sides followed a visit by President Joe Biden’s senior adviser Amos Hochstein, who this week met with officials in Lebanon and Israel in his latest attempt to deescalate tensions. Hochstein told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday that it was a “very serious situation” and that a diplomatic solution to prevent a larger war was “urgent.”

Nasrallah said a wider war with Lebanon would have regional implications and that Hezbollah would attack any other country in the region backing Israel, citing Cyprus, which has hosted Israeli forces for training exercises.

Only a cease-fire in Gaza would halt the Lebanon-Israel border fighting or the attacks on Western and Israel-linked targets from Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Iraqi militias allied with Hezbollah.

Israel views Hezbollah as its most direct threat, and the two fought a 34-day war in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Hebollah’s military capabilities have significantly grown since then, and the United States and Israel estimate the group, along with other Lebanese militant factions, has about 150,000 missiles and rockets. Hezbollah also has been working on precision-guided missiles.

Hezbollah said at least four of its fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday as Hochstein returned to Israel for a new round of meetings there.

Lebanese state media reported the strikes along the border and near the coastal city of Tyre, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) away. The Israeli military said two Hezbollah launches damaged several vehicles in northern Israel.

Kamel Mohanna, the head of the Amel Association, an NGO providing health services in different areas of Lebanon, said the association health center in the town of Khiam was hit and damaged by the Israeli shelling.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 people in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah and other militants, but also over 80 civilians and non-combatants. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed by strikes launched from Lebanon.

Smoke rises above Lebanon, following an Israeli strike, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Israel’s border with Lebanon in northern Israel on May 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Official media in Lebanon said an Israeli strike on May 5 on a southern village killed four family members, with Hezbollah announcing retaliatory attacks, in the latest cross-border violence since the Gaza war erupted.

Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group have exchanged regular cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with Hamas ally Hezbollah stepping up its attacks on northern Israel, and the Israeli military striking deeper into Lebanese territory.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Sunday’s strike in Mais al-Jabal killed “four people from a single family”, reporting that the raid was carried out by Israeli aircraft.

It identified the dead as a man, a woman and their children aged 12 and 21, and said two other people were wounded.

A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the strike killed “four civilians”.

Mais al-Jabal municipality chief Abdelmoneim Shukair had earlier told AFP that three people were killed, saying they were a couple and their son.

The Israeli military said in a statement later Sunday that “this morning… fighter jets struck a military site in the area of Mais al-Jabal”, without providing further details.

More retaliatory fire

Hezbollah in a statement said it fired “dozens of Katyusha and Falaq rockets” at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel “in response to the horrific crime that the Israeli enemy committed in Mais al-Jabal”.

It later said it fired dozens more Katyusha rockets across the border “as part of the response” to the Mais al-Jabal strike, and claimed a string of other attacks on northern Israel, some in stated retaliation to the raid.

The Israeli army said in the statement that “approximately 40 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon… a number of which were intercepted.”

“No injuries were reported,” it said, adding the army “struck the sources of the fire”.

It also said “fighter jets struck Hezbollah military structures and terrorist infrastructure” in several areas of southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s NNA reported Israeli strikes on various locations in the country’s south.

Hezbollah has repeatedly declared that only a ceasefire in Gaza will end its attacks on Israel, which it says are in support of Gazans and Hamas.

Both the United States and France have made diplomatic efforts to calm tensions on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

In Lebanon, at least 390 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also more than 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.

Beirut:

A local official in southern Lebanon said an Israeli strike on a village Sunday killed a couple and their child, the latest deadly incident in the border region.

Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group have exchanged regular cross-border fire since the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’s unprecedented October attack on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza.

Fighting intensified in the past few weeks, with Israel striking deeper into Lebanese territory, while Hezbollah has stepped up its missile and drone attacks on military positions in northern Israel.

“The dad, the mother and their little son were martyred”, according to the Mays al-Jabal municipality chief Abdelmoneim Chukair.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strike killed “three civilians” and wounded several others.

Hezbollah had on Saturday evening said it fired on military positions in northern Israel.

The Lebanese movement has repeatedly declared that only a ceasefire in Gaza will put an end to its attacks on Israel.

The latest violence came as a Hamas delegation met with mediators in Egypt for talks on a possible truce deal in the Gaza war.

Both the United States and France have made diplomatic efforts to calm tensions on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

In Lebanon, at least 389 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly operatives but also more than 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

The death count includes at least 11 Hamas fighters.

Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israeli and Lebanese flags are seen in this illustration
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli forces are carrying out “offensive action” across southern Lebanon, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday without specifying whether ground troops had crossed the border.

“Many forces are deployed on the border and IDF (army) forces are carrying out offensive action currently throughout southern Lebanon,” Mr. Gallant said in a statement.

He also claimed that “half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon have been eliminated” in months of violence. “The other half are in hiding and abandoning the field to IDF operations,” he added without giving a specific number.

A spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told AFP that “we didn’t detect any ground crossing today.”

The Israeli army said it had struck 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. “A short while ago, IDF (army) fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets” around Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, including storage facilities and weaponry, it said.

The army said Hezbollah “has established dozens of terror means and infrastructures in the area” to attack Israel.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israel had carried out more than 13 strikes near Aita al-Shaab and surrounding villages. “Israeli warplanes carried out… more than 13 air strikes targeting the outskirts of the towns of Aita al-Shaab, Ramya, Jabal Balat and Khallet Warda,” it said.

The strikes came after the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said it fired a fresh barrage of rockets across the border on Wednesday following a strike that killed two civilians which the group blamed on Israel.

The group had already fired rockets at northern Israel late on Tuesday “in response” to the civilian deaths.

“The targeting of civilians… cannot happen without a concrete response,” Hezbollah member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah told Lebanon’s National News Agency during a funeral procession in southern Lebanon.

“Let us make this enemy understand that… we are ready for any scenario,” he added.

Cross-border exchanges of fire have flared between the Israeli army and Hezbollah since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

Hezbollah began near-daily attacks against Israel on October 8 in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.

Since October 7, at least 380 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 72 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the border.

On January 2, a strike widely blamed on Israel killed Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri in southern Beirut.

Aruri is the most high-profile Hamas figure to be killed during the war.

Jerusalem:

Israeli forces are carrying out “offensive action” across southern Lebanon, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday without specifying whether ground troops had crossed the border.

“Many forces are deployed on the border and IDF (army) forces are carrying out offensive action currently throughout southern Lebanon,” Gallant said in a statement, also claiming that “half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon have been eliminated” in months of violence.

“The other half are in hiding and abandoning the field to IDF operations,” he added without giving a specific number.

In a separate statement, the army said it had struck 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

“A short while ago, IDF (army) fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets” around Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, including storage facilities and weaponry, it said.

The army said Hezbollah “has established dozens of terror means and infrastructures in the area” to attack Israel.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israel had carried out more than 13 strikes near Aita al-Shaab and surrounding villages.

“Israeli warplanes carried out … more than 13 air strikes targeting the outskirts of the towns of Aita al-Shaab, Ramya, Jabal Balat and Khallet Warda,” it said.

The strikes came after Hezbollah said it fired a fresh barrage of rockets across the border on Wednesday after a strike blamed on Israel killed two civilians.

The group had already fired rockets at northern Israel late on Tuesday “in response” to the civilian deaths.

Cross-border exchanges of fire have flared between the Israeli army and Iran-backed Hezbollah since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

Since October 7, at least 380 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 72 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel launched air strikes on the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon early on Sunday, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, a few hours after the downing of an Israeli drone over Lebanon.

The sources said that the Israeli attack targeted a training camp belonging to armed group Hezbollah in the Janta village, near the border with Syria.

One of the strikes was aimed at the town of Safri, near the eastern city of Baalbek, the sources added.

Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border since Oct. 8, a day after Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack on Israel that has led to escalating regional tensions.

The Iran-backed group claimed responsibility for downing an Israeli drone earlier on Saturday.

“The drone belonging to the Israeli army, which was shot down by the Islamic resistance fighters over Lebanese territory on the evening of Saturday, April 6, 2024, is of type Hermez 900,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Smoke billows above buildings following an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese border village of Majdal Zoun on March 9, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
| Photo Credit: AFP

At least five people were killed on March 9, four from the same family, and nine wounded in an Israeli strike on a house in southern Lebanon, the country’s official National News Agency reported.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israel have traded deadly cross-border fire on a near-daily basis since war broke out in October between Israel and the Gaza militant group Hamas, a Hezbollah ally.

“The attack against a house in the Khirbet Selm area killed a family of four,” a couple and their two children, and one other person, the NNA said, adding that the mother was also pregnant.

The strike demolished the house, wounding at least nine others who lived nearby, it said.

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October at least 312 people, mainly Hezbollah fighters, and 56 civilians have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.

The fighting is mainly along border regions but fears have grown of a broader conflict in Lebanon.

Last Tuesday, a Lebanese couple and their son were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the southern border village of Hula.

In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed.

The Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign to destroy Hamas has killed 30,960 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.