BEIRUT(National Times)- Israel’s military renewed its strikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Saturday, severely damaging buildings and a major hospital, as international tensions escalated over the safety of United Nations peacekeepers caught in the crossfire.
As Indonesia received the bodies of three of its UN peacekeepers killed while deployed in Lebanon, a UN security official told AFP that Israeli forces destroyed 17 surveillance cameras linked to the UNIFIL main headquarters in Naqura.
The bodies of the three Indonesian men arrived in Jakarta on Saturday. Their flag-draped coffins were carried into an airport hall on the shoulders of uniformed comrades for a ceremony attended by President Prabowo Subianto.
Family members wept over the coffins, each fronted by a photograph of the dead soldier in a gold frame.
The fatalities occurred in two separate incidents over the past week. One Indonesian peacekeeper died March 29 when a projectile exploded in southern Lebanon, an attack a UN security source attributed to Israeli tank fire. A day later, two more died after an explosion struck a UNIFIL logistics convoy.
“We were really sad and regretful, because this is a UN troop, a peacekeeping troop, not deployed for war,” Iskandarudin, the 60-year-old father of fallen soldier Zulmi Aditya Iskandar, told reporters.
In addition to the fatalities, three more Indonesian peacekeepers were wounded Friday afternoon in a blast inside a UN facility near Odaisseh. While the UN Information Centre in Jakarta said the origin of the explosion remains unknown, the Israeli military accused Hezbollah of firing a rocket that landed in the outpost.
“Repeated attacks or incidents of this kind are unacceptable,” the Indonesian foreign ministry said in a statement. “Regardless of their cause, these events underscore the urgent need to strengthen protection for UN peacekeeping forces amid an increasingly dangerous conflict situation.”
The Indonesian government urged the UN Security Council to investigate the events and immediately convene a meeting of troop-contributing countries.
Meanwhile, the UN peacekeeping force reported increasing damage to its infrastructure. The UN security official said 17 headquarters cameras were destroyed by the Israeli army within 24 hours.
Earlier in the week, UNIFIL spokeswoman Kandice Ardiel noted that Israeli soldiers were conducting demolitions in Naqura, adding that the blasts caused damage to UNIFIL’s headquarters.
In Tyre, the Israeli army struck three buildings it had warned people to evacuate, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.
Lebanon was dragged into a wider Middle East war following Hezbollah’s retaliation after Israel assassinated Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A missile completely destroyed an 11-story building northeast of Tyre, reducing it to rubble. A second raid leveled half of a five-story building, and a third strike hit the Burj al-Shamali Palestinian refugee camp.
Around 20,000 people remain in Tyre despite broad Israeli evacuation warnings. Saturday’s warnings followed strikes that wounded at least 11 people and damaged the Lebanese Italian Hospital.
Hospital management said overnight strikes destroyed two nearby buildings, shattering windows and causing suspended ceilings to collapse.
Despite the damage, the hospital’s director told the NNA it would “remain open to provide the necessary medical care”.
A wave of attacks also hit the Tyre area’s port, striking a small boat, while another airstrike completely destroyed a mosque in Baraashit.
Dawn strikes also targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs. Israel’s military stated Saturday it completed an additional wave of strikes targeting command centers belonging to the Quds Force and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
In eastern Lebanon, Israel completely destroyed a bridge in the West Bekaa region. Furthermore, the NNA reported that Israeli forces abducted a man in Shebaa, marking at least the third time Israeli forces have seized someone from south Lebanon since the war began.
The war has displaced upward of a million people in Lebanon and killed more than 1,300 people, including 53 medics and the three Indonesian UN peacekeepers.
