Bodies of aid workers moved out of Gaza
IDF: Lebanon peacekeepers were hit at weekend by Hezbollah land mine
The bodies of the foreign aid workers killed in the mistaken Israeli air strike in Gaza on Monday were transferred to Egypt on Wednesday, as international outrage simmered over the attack.
The air strike hit a convoy of three vehicles and killed seven staff members of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid group that including the citizens of Australia, Britain, and Poland, a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, as well as a Palestinian colleague, who was buried in Gaza.
Their deaths prompted a wave of condemnation from Israel’s closest allies, including US President Joe Biden, who said he was “outraged” by what he said was “not a stand-alone incident.”
In parallel, the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, said on Wednesday that an incident at the weekend in which three UN observers and their translator were wounded was not caused by “direct or indirect fire.”
The IDF had said that the explosion which harmed the UNIFIL forces was caused by a land mine set by Hezbollah.
The four members of the UN’s technical observation mission in southern Lebanon were wounded as they were carrying out a foot patrol in south Lebanon, where Hezbollah has been trading fire with the Israeli military across the border.
Two security sources had told Reuters at the time that the observers were wounded in an Israeli strike outside the border town of Rmeish.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned on Saturday the “targeting” and wounding of UN staff in southern Lebanon. However, even at the time, the IDF made it clear that this was not possible as it had not fired anywhere near that area.
Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL, said its “preliminary investigation showed that the incident was not caused by direct or indirect fire onto the group of UNTSO observers and their translator.”
“The investigation to determine the exact cause of the blast is ongoing,” he told Reuters.
UNIFIL IS KNOWN to avoid explicitly blaming Hezbollah so as not to endanger its ability to operate in the area.
Even in incidents where Hezbollah forces have openly killed some UNIFIL troops, the peacekeeping organization have allowed the terror group to claim that the forces were rowdy villagers unaffiliated with it.
The observers were from Chile, Australia, and Norway. The translator was Lebanese.
Israel’s shelling of Lebanon has killed over 300 terrorists. Reuters said that the IDF has also killed around 50 civilians, but did not source these statistics.
In at least one well-known incident the IDF mistakenly and accidentally killed clearly identifiable journalists, including Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah when the media personnel were in an area that intelligence said was clear of anyone other than Hezbollah.
National Unity MK and war minister Benny Gantz said in an address to the Israeli public on Wednesday evening that Israel’s top security priority was to change the reality on the northern front against Hezbollah.
“Our goal is to ensure all northern residents will return to their homes safely as early as this summer,” he said.
Despite that summer time frame for concluding the conflict in the North, Gantz said that the IDF will need to continue its fight against Hamas “for many years.”
It was unclear whether Gantz was anticipating significant continued hostilities as there are now, or whether he was referring to an extended lower-key insurgency, something IDF officials have alluded to in the past.
Estimates for a Hamas insurgency have run from three months in early February to all of 2024, to years, as Gantz and some other generals have said.
Earlier Wednesday, the air force attacked Hezbollah positions and infrastructure in southern Lebanon’s Kfar Hamam. The IDF said that one of the positions it attacked had been used to fire rockets at the Mount Dov area only minutes earlier.
It added that it struck Hezbollah positions in Blida and Aynata on Tuesday night, and shelled areas near Ayta ashShab earlier Wednesday.
Separately, the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced on Wednesday that during last week’s operation at Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, it captured Hamas Deputy Intelligence Gathering Chief Ashraf Ibrahim Samur. The agency said he gave highly descriptive explanations about exactly how Hamas had structured its operations at Shifa.
In southern Gaza, soldiers fought in the al-Karara and Absanim areas. The forces killed terrorists using tank and sniper fire and unearthed underground terror infrastructure.
Forces had found documents of significant intelligence value, though it did not specify what that was.
In the middle of a civilian olive grove, soldiers found and destroyed a rocket launcher.
In the past week, troops arrested several suspects entrenched in the vicinity.
The suspects were transferred to the intelligence unit and the Shin Bet for further interrogation, the military noted.
The IDF announced late Wednesday night that it called up reservists for its air defense units, a precaution in the event of a significant rocket attack from Hezbollah or another Iranian proxy, following the killing of top Iranian IRGC official Mohammad Reza Zahedi earlier this week, allegedly by Israel.