UN Peacekeeper Dies After Shelling Hits Base in Southern Lebanon

A United Nations peacekeeper died on Thursday from wounds sustained the night before when shelling hit his base near Marjayoun in southeastern Lebanon, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Thursday.

Two other peacekeepers were injured and are receiving treatement at a medical facility in the UNIFIL base.

"The Serbian authorities have confirmed that the peacekeeper was a Serbian national who had received emergency medical care after his base came under attack. He was then helicoptered to a Beirut hospital where he died," the UN peacekeeping mission said in a statement.

"Deliberate attacks on peacekeepers are grave violations of international humanitarian law and of Security Council Resolution 1701, and may amount to war crimes," the statement added.

The attack follows several similar incidents in recent months, some of them fatal, since the outbreak of the Iran war and renewed clashes between Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israel.

"UNIFIL has detected an increasingly high number of trajectories and impacts in South Lebanon," the UN peacekpeeing mission wrote, calling for an end to the violence.

The circumstances and responsibility for the attack are under investigationby UNIFIL, which has lost seven peacekeepers in Lebanon since renewed fighting erupted in March.

"It is not clear where the shelling originated, but the development comes amid intensifying exchanges of fire between the Israeli military in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah fighters who are not part of Lebanese army," UNIFIL stated.

On Wednesday, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a conditional ceasefire following a fourth round of negotiations in Washington.

Hezbollah, which had not been part of the talks, rejected the ceasefire plan, while Israel resumed its strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday.

What is UNIFIL?

UNIFIL was created in 1978 to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon following Israel's invasion. Today, there are roughly 7,500 peacekeepers operating along the Blue Line, a 120-kilometre demarcation strip, still serving as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel.

According to UNIFIL, peacekeepers come from nearly 50 countries, including 170 from Serbia.

In late March, an Indonesian blue helmet was killed and another died of wounds suffered after a projectile hit their base. A preliminary investigation by the UN found that the soldier was killed by an Israeli tank shell.

The following day, two more Indonesian blue helmets were killed by an improvised explosive device. The same UN investigation found that Hezbollah was likely responsible.

A few weeks later in April, two French peacekeepers were killed in an ambush that President Emmanuel Macron blamed and the UN attributed to Hezbollah, which denied involvement.

UN chief Antonio Guterres stressed on Monday that peacekeepers would still be needed in Lebanon, even after UNIFIL's mission expires at the end of the year. This suggestion will likely face pushback from the US and Israe, who have repeatedly called for the termination of the mission.