TRANSCRIPT
Israel's military says four soldiers have died and more than 60 people have been injured in a drone strike on Binyamina in central Israel.
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the strike which it says was on the Israeli military's Golani Brigade camp in retaliation for two Israeli strikes in Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people.
Rafi Sheva, a Magen David Adom paramedic, says many of the injuries are life-threatening.
“It was a difficult scene. The impact of the drone caused injuries due to the blast and shrapnel, serious injuries. The injured needed life-saving treatment and blockages of blood vessels to stop the bleeding - life-saving medical treatment - and were quickly evacuated to the hospitals.”
Israeli media reported that two drones were launched from Lebanon on Sunday, with the military able to intercept one.
Meanwhile, residents in the Israeli city of Haifa took cover from a barrage of incoming rockets Sunday evening.
This comes as the Lebanese Health Ministry says Israeli strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon have killed more than a dozen people and caused damage to hospitals.
At the Lebanese-Israeli border, the United Nations is reporting that two Israeli Merkava tanks destroyed the main gate of a UNIFIL peacekeeping force post and forcibly entered before dawn on Sunday morning.
The Israeli military says the incident occurred after Hezbollah militants had fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli troops, wounding 25.
It says a tank helping evacuate the casualties accidentally backed into the gate while under fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling on U-N Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to end the peacekeeping mission and withdraw its troops, for their own safety.
“I would like to appeal directly to the UN Secretary General: it is time for you to remove UNIFIL from Hezbollah's strongholds and from the fighting areas. The IDF has repeatedly asked for this, and has been met with repeated refusals, all aimed at providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists. Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers. We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone.”
Hezbollah is denying Israel's accusation that it uses the proximity of peacekeepers for protection.
United Nations official Jean-Pierre Lacroix has briefed the Security Council on the incident.
He says the safety of U-N peacekeepers in Lebanon is in jeopardy.
“The safety and security of peacekeepers is now increasingly in jeopardy. The actions go against the protections afforded to UN premises and personnel under international law. Previously, I have highlighted that Hezbollah activities in the vicinity of UN positions held the potential to hold return fire. Now we face a similar situation with the Israel Defence Forces installing positions directly adjacent to UN positions. A development we strongly protest.”
Meanwhile in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike has killed at least 20 people including children at a school.
Israel’s bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between militants or civilians.
This comes as the World Health Organization says its staff have been unable to get into northern part of the enclave since October, leaving no way to provide Palestinians in the area with medical supplies and personnel as well as other aid.
The Israeli military has been carrying out continuous airstrikes on the northern and central areas of the Gaza Strip.
The W-H-O has been carrying out a UN polio vaccination campaign that has already immunised nearly 560,000 children in central and southern Gaza by mid-September, but efforts have lagged in the north.
W-H-O spokesperson, Dr Margaret Harris, says aid workers must be allowed access to do their work.
“It's critical that humanitarian missions are allowed back into the north, supplies depend on it. We are actually starting a polio campaign next week. The north is the last of the areas that that will happen in. But again, we need safe passage and what we really need, and we've said over and over again, and people treat us as if we are talking about fairyland, but we need a ceasefire, we need peace.”
According to Gaza health officials, over the past day, Israeli military operations in Gaza killed 52 people and wounded 128 others, bringing the total number of injuries to 98,464.
