U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday urged Israel to take measures to protect civilians and ensure they are not caught “in a terrible crossfire,” as Washington continued its efforts to prevent a broader conflict in the Middle East and seek a diplomatic solution in Lebanon.
This came as fresh Israeli strikes in Gaza and Beirut resulted in numerous casualties. The Israeli military said it was targeting terrorist operatives.
Blinken said Lebanon’s future was for the Lebanese people to decide, not for any external actor.
“It's clear that the people of Lebanon have an interest, a strong interest, in the state asserting itself and taking responsibility for the country and its future. The presidency has been vacant for two years now, and for the Lebanese people, having a head of state would be very important, but that's for the Lebanese to decide, and no one else,” Blinken told reporters during a news conference in Vientiane, Laos.
U.S. officials have reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself against terror attacks from Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah, as Israel expands its ground incursion into Lebanon.
The Pentagon said Friday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, on Thursday to discuss Israel's operations in Lebanon.
Austin reaffirmed “ironclad support for Israel's right to defend itself” and said Washington was committed to a “diplomatic arrangement” that safely returned both Lebanese and Israeli civilians to their homes on both sides of the border.
Airstrikes in Beirut
In the Lebanese capital, two Israeli airstrikes late Thursday hit apartment buildings in the central part of the city — without any warning and far from the Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut that Israel has bombarded nightly for more than two weeks.
The Lebanese Health Ministry put the toll at 22 dead and 117 injured, but the casualty numbers were expected to rise as rescuers continued to sift through the rubble Friday.
Israeli and Lebanese media speculated that the likely target was Wafiq Safa, the longtime head of Hezbollah's Liaison and Coordination Unit. There was no immediate confirmation that he was the target or whether he was killed.
At a news conference Friday, Hezbollah spokesperson Mohammad Afif said, “The battle with the enemy is still in its very early stages.”
Speaking outdoors with the rubble of destroyed buildings behind him in the group’s stronghold on the southern outskirts of the capital, Afif referred to Hezbollah rocket attacks that have gone as far south as Haifa, Israel, in recent days.
“What happened in Haifa and the surroundings in the past few days proves that we are still in the beginning,” he said. “And I say to the enemy: You have only seen a few of our strikes.”
After a period of relative calm, Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel following Hamas' October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, displacing tens of thousands on both sides of the border and leading to the current escalation.
UN peacekeepers attacked
In the south, peacekeepers with the U.N. interim force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, sustained Israeli fire for a second day. The mission said two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were wounded, one critically.
They were injured in a blast near an observation tower at the mission’s headquarters in Naqoura. The headquarters was also hit by Israel Defense Forces tank fire on Thursday, injuring two Indonesian peacekeepers.
UNIFIL said that at a separate position on Friday near the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel at Labbouneh, several protective blast walls collapsed when an IDF armored bulldozer hit the perimeter and IDF tanks moved near the position.
Asked about Thursday’s attack at a news conference on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Laos, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the “incident is intolerable, and it cannot be repeated.”
“Peacekeepers must be protected by all parties of the conflict, and what has happened is obviously condemnable,” Guterres said.
The IDF said of Friday’s incident that its soldiers “identified an immediate threat against them” and “responded with fire toward the threat.”
“An initial examination indicates that during the incident, a hit was identified on a UNIFIL post, located approximately 50 meters from the source of the threat, resulting in the injury of two UNIFIL personnel,” the military said.
The IDF has told UNIFIL to move 5 kilometers (3 miles) north of the area, but the United Nations says its force is mandated to stay and do its job. The mission has taken some precautionary measures and plans to remain, the head of U.N. peacekeeping said Thursday.
Asked by VOA at a press encounter Friday at the White House if he was asking Israel stop firing at U.N. peacekeepers, President Joe Biden replied, “Absolutely, positively.”
In his call with the Israeli defense minister, Austin also emphasized the importance of ensuring the safety of UNIFIL forces in the area “and urged coordinating efforts to pivot from military operations to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible.”
France, which has historical links with Lebanon and 700 peacekeepers in UNIFIL, condemned “continued deliberate Israeli fire against” the force.
“These attacks constitute serious violations of international law and must cease immediately,” France's foreign ministry said in a statement Friday. “The Israeli authorities must explain themselves. France is therefore summoning the Israeli ambassador to France to the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs today.”
Italy’s government also formally protested to Israel and summoned the Israeli ambassador, after two bases with Italian peacekeepers were repeatedly hit Thursday.
UNIFIL has over 10,000 peacekeepers from more than 50 countries in south Lebanon.
The Lebanese army said two of its soldiers were killed and three wounded in an Israeli airstrike Friday near a military checkpoint in south Lebanon close to the border. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
War in Gaza
On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza sheltering displaced people killed at least 27 people, according to Palestinian medical officials.
Israel said the strike targeted militants in a command center that was embedded inside the school.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate, with the World Food Program reporting that no food aid has entered the territory since October 1.
“The main crossings into northern Gaza have been closed and will be inaccessible if this escalation continues,” U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters.
He said the food program distributed its last remaining food stocks in northern Gaza to partners and community kitchens but it was barely enough to last two weeks.
The situation is also bad in southern Gaza.
“There are no food distributions, and bakeries are struggling to secure wheat flour, which puts them at risk of shutting down any day,” Haq said. “Aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months. No one has received food parcels in this month due to constrained access of aid supplies.”
Despite the situation, the U.N. is preparing to start a second round of polio vaccinations for children in Gaza on Monday, and it appealed for the implementation of a humanitarian pause to safely enable the campaign. Nearly 600,000 children were vaccinated in the first round in early September, and they require a second dose to complete their protection. The virus has resurfaced in Gaza’s wastewater after a 25-year absence.
Region waits
Meanwhile, the region waits to see when and how Israel will retaliate against Iran for a large ballistic missile strike on October 1, and whether it will tip the region into a wider war.
Israel's war Cabinet met Thursday night, reportedly to sign off on its response.
Israel's defense minister said Wednesday that the retaliation would be "deadly, precise and surprising."
Biden has said he would not support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites. He spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to discuss the regional situation.
About 1,200 people were killed in Israel in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the yearlong war in Gaza. Some 250 people also were taken hostage, with about 100 of them still being held.
Israel's military campaign of air and ground attacks in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 97,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between militants and civilians but has said just more than half were women and children.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated terrorist organizations by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Israel and others.
VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching contributed to this story from Vientiane, Laos. U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer, VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara, VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb and VOA reporter Natasha Mozgovaya contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
