Israeli attacks on UN forces in Lebanon must stop – Britain, Italy, France and Germany say Israeli attacks on the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, are contrary to international humanitarian law and must stop at once, Italy, Britain, France and Germany said, Reuters reports. In a joint statement, the four nations reaffirmed “the essential stabilising role” played by UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, adding that Israel and other parties had to ensure the safety of the peacekeepers at all times. The UNIFIL mission, which includes hundreds of European soldiers, has said it has repeatedly come under attack from the Israeli military in recent days. Israel has called on the UN to move troops out of the area as it targets Hezbollah forces. UN peacekeepers in Lebanon to "stay in all positions’ despite Israeli calls UN peacekeepers will stay in all positions in Lebanon, the UN’s peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said on Monday, despite Israeli calls for them to withdraw from areas of southern Lebanon. Israel is facing international criticism for at least three violations in the past week that have injured five members of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Unifil. On Sunday, two Israeli tanks destroyed a gate and forcibly entered a Unifil base. As we reported earlier, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated a call for peacekeepers to withdraw from combat zones close to the border. Lacroix said: The decision was made that Unifil would currently stay in all its positions in spite of the calls that were made by the Israel Defense Forces to vacate the positions that are in the vicinity of the Blue Line. Here are some of the latest images sent from the newswires from the city of Deir al Balah in central Gaza: Netanyahu rejects accusation that peacekeepers were targeted Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected accusations that Israeli forces deliberately targeted UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. “The charge that Israel deliberately attacked Unifil personnel is completely false,” the Israeli prime minister said in a video posted on Monday. It’s exactly the opposite. Israel repeatedly asked Unifil to get out of harm’s way. It repeatedly asked them to temporarily leave the combat zone, which is right next to Israel’s border with Lebanon. He said the military did its utmost to avoid harming Unifil personnel, while striking Hezbollah fighters. “Israel has every right to defend itself against Hezbollah and will continue to do so,” he said, adding: But the best way to assure the safety of Unifil personnel is for Unifil to heed Israel’s request and to temporarily get out of harm’s way. As Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah and Iran has escalated, it has begun to show a degree of vulnerability. A Hezbollah drone evaded Israel’s much vaunted air defences on Sunday and struck a military canteen when it was busy with soldiers eating dinner. Four were killed and 58 wounded, seven seriously, at a location 40 miles south of the Lebanese border. The drone that hit the canteen of the Golani base near Binyamina appears to have been part of a synchronised attack that allowed it to elude the country’s well organised air defences. Hezbollah has been refining its attack strategy, and timing the drone attack with rockets helped complicate the picture for the defenders. It is not the first time in recent days that a drone has got through. A retirement home in Herzliya was struck by a drone on Friday during the Yom Kippur holiday – one of two that crossed the border from Lebanon. The other was shot down successfully by a fighter jet, but the second struck the building a few miles north of Tel Aviv. Red Cross calls for protection of medical workers in Lebanon The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has called for Lebanon’s heathcare system to be protected after reports that Israeli strikes hit medical staff during fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. “I really ... appeal for the protection of healthcare workers, for ambulances, for hospitals, for primary health centres,” Nicolas Von Arx, the ICRC’s regional director for the Near and Middle East, said on Monday, AFP reported. “Attacks on health facilities are deeply worrying,” he added. Such strikes mean “a hospital that doesn’t function any more. That means thousands, tens of thousands of people who cannot get healthcare, who cannot deliver in a safe place, who cannot get their wounds treated. Of the 207 primary health care centres in Lebanon’s conflict areas, 100 are now closed due to the escalating violence, according to the World Health Organization (Who). Von Arx said: We are very, very concerned about the displacements, about the functioning of health care systems, about the continuous suffering now in Lebanon. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said one of its workers was killed by shrapnel injuries suffered to the legs and chest in Jabalia in northern Gaza, which has come under “relentless attacks” by Israeli forces. Nasser Hamdi Abdelatif Al Shalfouh, 31, died of his injuries on 10 October in Kamal Adwan hospital, the medical charity said. It said he was “unable to receive the necessary level of care due to the hospital’s lack of capacity and an overwhelming number of patients in the facility”. In a statement on Monday, MSF said it was “horrified” by the killing and called again for the “respect and protection of civilians”. It added: Nasser is the seventh MSF colleague killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war. This bloodshed needs to end. As we reported earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a volley of artillery at a school used to shelter displaced Palestinians in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Sunday. At least 22 people were killed, including 15 children, as well as dozens others injured by the Israeli attack, according to the Palestinian territory’s civil defence authority. The school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat had been intended for use as a polio vaccination site on Monday, but a spokesperson for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) told the BBC that Sunday’s attack left the site unusable for vaccines today. Unrwa spokesperson Louise Wateridge told the UN: Throughout the night, I spoke to a colleague sheltering in the compound who told me, ‘We miraculously survived, the fire caught everywhere even the tent where we were sleeping burnt. The scene is terrifying.’ The German government has sharply criticised the shelling of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. A spokesperson for Germany’s foreign office, Sebastian Fischer, told reporters on Monday: 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 He added that a comprehensive investigation is expected and that discussions on the matter were being held with the Israeli side. The situation in southern Lebanon is causing growing concern, Fischer added, saying: The shelling of UN peacekeepers and the intrusion into their bases is in no way acceptable. Summary of the day so far It’s just past 9pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza. Here’s a recap of the latest developments: The death toll from an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in northern Lebanon on Monday has risen to at least 21 people. The strike targeted the Christian-majority village of Aitou, far from the Hezbollah group’s main areas of influence in the south and east of Lebanon. The Lebanese health ministry said DNA tests were being conducted to identify body parts. So far the main focus of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon has been in the south, the eastern Bekaa valley and the suburbs of Beirut. An Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people including children at the Al-Mufti school in central Gaza on Sunday night, medics said. The school in Nuseirat was sheltering some of the many Palestinians displaced by the war when it was struck by a volley of artillery, killing entire families and wounding dozens more. An Israeli airstrike killed at least eight Palestinians and wounded many others in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, medics said on Monday. At least 10 Palestinians were killed and at least 30 injured in Israeli airstrikes on a food distribution center in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Palestinian medics said. At least four people were killed after an Israeli airstrike hit near the grounds of al-Aqsa hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, causing a fire that engulfed several tents housing displaced Palestinians. Footage showed people desperately trying to extinguish the flames as explosions could be heard within the camp. At least 42,289 Palestinians have been killed and 98,684 wounded in Israeli strikes since 7 October 2023, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday. Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to strike Hezbollah without mercy following the drone strike on a military base in Israel on Sunday that killed four people. “We will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon – including Beirut,” the Israeli prime minister said on Monday. Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas, according to a report. The plan proposed by a group of retired generals would give Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone. Those who remain would be considered combatants – meaning military regulations would allow troops to kill them – and denied food, water, medicine and fuel, according to a copy of the plan given to the Associated Press. Lebanese officials said an Israeli airstrike hit near an aid convoy in Lebanon on Monday, 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. Hezbollah said it launched a barrage of rockets at the north Israeli town of Safed on Monday. Hezbollah said it battled Israeli troops in south Lebanon, and claimed several new attacks on Israel after a drone strike on an Israeli base near Binyamina, south of Haifa, killed four soldiers on Sunday night. Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant vowed “a forceful response” to the Hezbollah drone attack during a conversation with his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin. Israel’s military said that three projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, and that all of them had been intercepted, following reports that sirens were sounding across the country. The Israeli military said it also intercepted two drones approaching from Syria, a day after a drone attack by Hezbollah on a base killed four soldiers. The UN’s secretary-general, António Guterres, condemned the “large number of civilian casualties in the intensifying Israeli campaign in northern Gaza”, his spokesperson said on Monday. The UN chief “strongly urges all parties to the conflict to comply with international humanitarian law and emphasises that civilians must be respected and protected at all times,” spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. The UN’s human rights office said it was appalled by more than a week of heavy Israeli strikes on northern Gaza, where it said tens of thousands of civilians are trapped without food or supplies. It said the Israeli army “appears to be cutting off North Gaza completely from the rest of the Gaza Strip and conducting hostilities with absolute disregard for the lives and security of Palestinian civilians”. Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said. According to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, one of the men was 17 years old. Four others were injured by Israeli fire during the raid, it said. Israeli attacks on the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (Unifil) are contrary to international humanitarian law and must stop at once, according to a joint statement by Italy, Britain, France and Germany on Monday. The four nations reaffirmed “the essential stabilising role” played by Unifil in southern Lebanon, adding that Israel and other parties had to ensure the safety of the peacekeepers at all times. Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said there would be “no withdrawal” of the UN peacekeeping force from southern Lebanon after Israeli attacks and calls to leave. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Unifil’s work “is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.” Unifil said Israeli tanks forcibly entered the gates of one position early Sunday and destroyed the main gate. They later fired smoke rounds near peacekeepers, causing skin irritation. The UN peacekeeping mission called the incident a “further flagrant violation of international law”. Israel’s infrastructure minister, Eli Cohen, accused Unifil of being a “shield for Hezbollah” and called on Guterres to remove the force. In a post on Twitter/X on Monday, Cohen said the UN force has “contributed nothing to maintaining stability and security in the region” but denied Israel was deliberately targeting peacekeepers. Ireland’s foreign minister, Micheál Martin, accused Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the UN. Asked what Israel’s aim might be in demanding that UN peacekeepers leave their bases in Lebanon after a series of attacks, Martin said: “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein”. Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, and economics minister Robert Habeck, are said to have blocked German arms exports to Israel over concerns as to what the weapons would be used for, according to German media reports. No military exports to Israel have been approved since March according to the reports. Officials from the US’s main humanitarian agency attend daily meetings on an Israeli military base that also hosts a notorious prison for Palestinian detainees where torture reportedly runs rampant, the Guardian has learned. Here are some of the latest images sent from the newswires from Lebanon, where at least 1,700 people have been killed and 1.2 million people displaced in the past month. Israeli attacks on UN forces in Lebanon must stop – Britain, Italy, France and Germany say Israeli attacks on the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, are contrary to international humanitarian law and must stop at once, Italy, Britain, France and Germany said, Reuters reports. In a joint statement, the four nations reaffirmed “the essential stabilising role” played by UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, adding that Israel and other parties had to ensure the safety of the peacekeepers at all times. The UNIFIL mission, which includes hundreds of European soldiers, has said it has repeatedly come under attack from the Israeli military in recent days. Israel has called on the UN to move troops out of the area as it targets Hezbollah forces. CCTV caught the moment a Hezbollah rocket hit a northern Israeli town. Israeli ambulances and firefighters rushed to the northern Israeli town of Karmiel on 14 October after Hezbollah launched a rocket barrage into Israel. Firefighters struggled to extinguish a car that caught fire in the middle of the street, while medics treated one lightly wounded woman, Israel’s ambulances service MDA said.