In a concerning flare-up of violence, three United Nations peacekeepers sustained injuries when their base in southern Lebanon was struck on Friday. Both the UN force and the Ghanaian military confirmed the incident, with Lebanon’s president pointing fingers at Israel for the attack.

This assault unfolded amid heightened tensions as Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group, exchanged fire. These hostilities escalated following the extension of the Middle East conflict into Lebanon earlier this week.

According to a statement from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the injuries occurred “amidst heavy firing” at the peacekeepers’ base in Qawzah, located in southern Lebanon. “The most severely injured has been transferred to a hospital in Beirut for treatment,” the statement added.

The Ghanaian military reported that its UNIFIL battalion headquarters suffered “two missile attacks,” resulting in two soldiers being critically injured and another experiencing trauma. Additionally, the officers’ mess facility was completely destroyed in the attack.

Ghana’s military said that its UNIFIL battalion headquarters came under “two missile attacks”, adding that “two soldiers are critically injured, while one other has been traumatised”.

“The officers’ mess facility also got hit and has been burnt down completely.”

Neither UNIFIL nor the Ghanaian army specified the source of the attack, but the international force said it will investigate the circumstances of the incident.

“It is unacceptable that peacekeepers performing (UN) Security Council-mandated tasks are targeted,” it added.

Mohamad Safa — the executive director of human rights NGO Patriotic Vision PVA, which holds special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council — said Israel had “deliberately bombed UN peacekeepers in Lebanon”.

“This violates International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Geneva Conventions, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), 1994 Convention, the UN Charter and Security Council Mandates,” he said in a post on X.

In a statement, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned “Israeli attacks on Lebanon”, adding that they had “even reached the point of a direct assault on UNIFIL”.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the “unacceptable attack” on UNIFIL after speaking with his Lebanese and Syrian counterparts.

“France is working with its partners to prevent the conflict from spreading further in the region,” Macron said on X, highlighting the “key stabilising role” played by the UN force.

In a post on X, the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said that she was “dismayed that our colleagues have suffered injuries and wishing them a full recovery”.

UNIFIL has acted as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon for decades and was assisting the Lebanese army while it was dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure near the Israeli border after the last war opposing the Iran-backed group and Israel in 2024.

It plans to withdraw all troops from Lebanon by mid-2027.

SBS News has contacted the Israeli Defense Forces for comment.

UNIFIL strike comes amid escalating Israeli attacks

The reported strike on the UNIFIL base came as Israel pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs with airstrikes on Friday, stepping up a war with Hezbollah that has forced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes and killed more than 200, according to a health ministry toll.

Israel ordered everyone in the densely-populated suburbs, Hezbollah’s main stronghold in the capital, to leave on Thursday before launching strikes that lit up the night sky.

It has also warned civilians to quit swathes of southern and eastern Lebanon — heartlands of the Lebanese armed Shi’ite Muslim group.

They were the widest evacuation orders ever given by Israel in Lebanon and prompted a huge displacement of people before the bombardments that continued into Friday, sending columns of smoke billowing across the Beirut skyline.

“We’re sleeping here in the streets — some in cars, some on the street, some on the beach,” said Jamal Seifeddin, 43, who spent the night outside in the capital’s downtown district.

“I’ve never slept on the ground like this. I’ve been forced to. No one even brought a blanket,” he said.

The Norwegian Refugee Council estimated that 300,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon, with the number of people who could be displaced potentially exceeding one million.

Lebanon was pulled into the war in the Middle East on Monday, when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel that ignited a new Israeli offensive against the group — established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982 — 15 months after their 2024 war.

The Lebanese Health Ministry reported a sharp increase in the death toll during the day, to 217 killed since Monday from 127 earlier, and said another 798 had been wounded. Its figures do not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

No fatalities have been reported in Israel as a result of Hezbollah attacks. The Israeli military said eight Israeli soldiers were injured — five of them seriously — by projectile fire toward Israeli territory near the border.

An Israeli military official said several waves of strikes were launched against Hezbollah in the southern suburbs, striking about 115 targets including in residential buildings that the official said the group used as headquarters.

Airstrikes have also targeted Tripoli in the north of Lebanon, Tyre, Sidon and Nabatieh in the south, and Baalbek in the east, the official said.

Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said Hezbollah had fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel this week, including around 70 rockets since midnight on Friday.

Imran Riza, a UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, told Reuters that around 100,000 people had already been displaced into shelters in Lebanon, and the number of displaced was expected to rise dramatically.

“What we saw in the last couple of days is, I would say … unprecedented in terms of the scale here in Lebanon of the warnings, the displacement orders, and the reaction, the panic also, that this has all created,” Riza said.

Hezbollah, in a message published in Hebrew on its Telegram channel early on Friday, warned Israelis to leave towns within 5km of the border.

“Your military’s aggression against Lebanese sovereignty and safe citizens, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the expulsion campaign it is carrying out will not go unchallenged,” Hezbollah said.

During fighting between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024, tens of thousands of Israelis were evacuated from towns in the border area but many have since returned. Israeli officials have previously said there are no plans to remove them for now.

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