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Hezbollah bomb wounded UN peacekeepers: IDF spokesman

Israel launched an investigation into the explosion and determined that it had no aerial forces operating in the area at the time of the blast.

By World Israel News Staff

A roadside bomb planted by Hezbollah terrorists wounded several UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon over the weekend, the IDF spokesman announced on Wednesday.

On Saturday, an explosion wounded three UN soldiers and their local translator while they were on a foot patrol near the southern Lebanese village of Rmeish, but the origin of the blast was initially unclear.

Media reports said the injured soldiers hold Norwegian, Chilean, and Australian citizenship. The translator is a Lebanese national.

All four men are now hospitalized in moderate condition.

Lebanese officials were quick to accuse Israel, saying the four had been injured by an IAF air strike.

Lebanon’s state-controlled National News Agency claimed that an “enemy [Israeli] drone” was to blame for the incident.

Israel launched an investigation into the explosion and determined that it had no aerial forces operating in the area at the time of the blast.

The Israeli army later found that the peacekeeping team was wounded by “the detonation of an explosive device that had been previously planted in this area by Hezbollah,” said IDF Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee.

UNIFIL and the UNTSO organization, an offshoot of UNIFIL created speciically for the Blue Line border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel, condemned the explosion, without stating who was responsible.

The “safety and security of UN personnel must be guaranteed,” UNIFIL said shortly after the blast, calling on “all actors to cease the current heavy exchanges of fire before more people are unnecessarily hurt.”

“All actors have a responsibility under international humanitarian law to ensure protection to non-combatants, including peacekeepers, journalists, medical personnel, and civilians,” UNTSO said in a media statement.

“We repeat our call for all actors to cease the current heavy exchanges of fire before more people are unnecessarily hurt.”

Notably, the attack on the UN peacekeepers has not sparked significant global outcry.