Austrian peacekeepers injured in missile strike at camp in Lebanon
The news came as Hezbollah named their new leader in succession to Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.
Eight Austrian soldiers serving in the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon were lightly injured in a missile strike at the Naqoura camp on Tuesday, Austrian authorities said.
Defence ministry spokesman Michael Bauer wrote on social network X that the incident happened on Tuesday lunchtime. He said it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strike.
The injuries were “light and superficial scrapes,” Mr Bauer said.
The news came after an Israeli strike on a five-story building where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the northern Gaza Strip killed at least 60 people early on Tuesday, more than half of them women and children, Gaza’s health ministry said.
In a separate development, Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah said it has chosen Sheikh Naim Kassem to succeed long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month. Hezbollah vowed to continue with Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved”.
Hezbollah said in a statement that its decision-making Shura Council elected Kassem, who had been Nasrallah’s deputy leader for over three decades, as the new secretary-general.
Kassem, 71, a founding member of the militant group established following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, had been serving as acting leader. He has given several televised speeches vowing that Hezbollah will fight on despite a string of setbacks.
Even as attention has shifted to Lebanon and Iran in recent weeks, Israel has continued to wage a large operation in northern Gaza and to carry out airstrikes across the territory.
Dr Marwan al-Hams, director of the field hospitals’ department at the Gaza health ministry, announced the toll from Tuesday’s strike in the northern town of Beit Lahiya at a news conference. He said another 17 people are missing.
The ministry’s emergency service said at least 12 women and 20 children were among the dead, including babies. The dead included a mother and her five children, some of them adults, and a second mother with her six children, according to an initial casualty list provided by the emergency service.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has been waging the operation in northern Gaza for more than three weeks, targeting what it says are pockets of Hamas militants who have regrouped there.
Israel has sharply restricted aid to the north this month, prompting a warning from the United States that failure to facilitate greater humanitarian assistance could lead to a reduction in military aid.
Palestinians fear Israel is enacting a plan proposed by a group of former generals, who suggested the civilian population of the north should be ordered to evacuate, aid supplies should be cut off, and anyone remaining there should be considered a militant.
The military has denied carrying out such a plan, while the government has not made a clear statement about it.
Israel also faced a backlash after passing legislation that could severely restrict the ability of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees to operate in the Palestinian territories.
The agency, known as UNRWA, is the largest aid provider in Gaza. Israel has long accused it of militant ties, allegations it denies.
A spokesperson for the UN children’s agency said the decision “means that a new way has been found to kill children”.
On Monday, Israel’s parliament passed two laws that ban UNRWA from operating on Israeli soil and cut all ties with the agency. Israel controls access to both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and it was unclear how the agency would continue to operate there.
Israel says UNRWA has been infiltrated by Hamas and that the militant group siphons off aid and uses UN facilities to shield its activities, allegations denied by the UN agency.
Aid groups have warned that there is no immediate replacement for UNRWA, which provides education, health care and emergency aid to millions of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants. Refugee families make up the majority of Gaza’s population.
James Elder, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency, known as Unicef, said the suspension of UNRWA’s work “would likely see the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza.” He said Unicef “would become effectively unable to distribute lifesaving supplies.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. About 90% of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced from their homes, often multiple times.
