Five hospitals have been put on high alert to take in casualties from the blast after what appeared to be two separate strikes.
Two UN peacekeepers have been injured after an Israeli tank fired towards a watchtower at a UN base in southern Lebanon, the UN says.
According to a statement by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the observation tower at its headquarters in Naqoura was directly hit, causing the peacekeepers to fall.
"The injuries are fortunately, this time, not serious, but they remain in hospital," the UN says.
It adds that Israeli soldiers also fired at a UN base in Ras Naqoura, "hitting the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, and damaging vehicles and a communications system".
There's more in their statement which we'll bring you shortly.
UNIFIL is a UN peacekeeping mission created in 1978. It monitors hostilities and helps to ensure humanitarian access to civilians.
Let's see how the Israeli's cope with Peacekeepers that have decentralised command and don't have to wait for someone at the home to green light to fight back.
I don't think Israel will do anything other than issue 'evacuation orders' followed by attacking 'human shields' regardless of any UN peacekeeping force. I wonder how that'll play out
Politicians of many countries will express their shock and outrage towards the media before turning around and signing even more arms deals with Israel.
America will be like ‘We’ve ask israel (the accused btw) to investigate themselves’ meanwhile israel says ‘yeah right’ and does fuck all for a year and a half while the weapons keep in coming. Finally they admit that they did deliberately target UN peacekeepers, but by that point everyone has forgotten and if you bring it up you’ll be called antisemitic.
They fired at 2 UN bases so imagine what happens to random civilians. They are going to make the absurdly-high civilian death toll in Gaza look small compared to what they have in store for the region if we don't stop sending them bombs.
In 2006, during the last major confrontation, a UN Observation Position (OP) came under Israeli artillery and aerial bombardment.
Despite repeated appeals to the IDF to stop firing, throughout 25 July, the OP on the outskirts of the village of Khiam was finally destroyed.
Four UN military observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland were killed.
Israel’s ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon, said “Unifil obviously got caught in the middle", and suggested that the deadly fire could have come from Hezbollah.
A UN investigation concluded that the base had been destroyed by a 500kg precision-guided bomb dropped by an Israeli warplane.