UN Warns against 'Catastrophic' Regional Conflict

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon warned Saturday against a "catastrophic" regional conflict as Israeli forces battled Hezbollah and Hamas fighters on two fronts, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Israel has faced a fierce diplomatic backlash over incidents in south Lebanon that saw five Blue Helmets wounded.

On Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said Israeli airstrikes on two villages located near the capital Beirut killed nine people.

Israel had earlier told residents of south Lebanon not to return home, as its troops launched a war on the country that has killed more than 1,200 people since September 23, and forced more than a million others to flee their homes.

"For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice... Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk," Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.

Hezbollah said Saturday it launched missiles across the border into northern Israel, where air raid sirens sounded and the military said it had intercepted a projectile.

In an interview with AFP, UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP he feared an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah in south Lebanon could soon spiral out of control "into a regional conflict with catastrophic impact for everyone".

The UN force said five peacekeepers have been wounded by fighting in south Lebanon in just two days, and Tenenti said "a lot of damage" had been caused to its posts there.

Around Israel, markets were closed and public transport halted as observant Jews fasted and prayed on Yom Kippur.

After the holiday, attention is likely to turn again to Israel's expected retaliation against Iran, which launched around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.

Israel began pounding Gaza shortly after suffering its worst ever attacks from Hamas on October 7 last year, and it launched a ground offensive on Lebanon claiming targets against Hezbollah on September 30.

- 'Deliberately targeted' -

On Friday, Israel faced criticism from the UN, its Western allies and others over what it said was a "hit" on a UN peacekeeping position in Lebanon.

Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were hurt in the second such incident in two days, UNIFIL said Friday.

Israel's military said soldiers had responded to "an immediate threat" around 50 metres (yards) from the UNIFIL base in Naqura, and has pledged to carry out a "thorough review".

The Irish military's chief of staff, Sean Clancy, said it was "not an accidental act", and French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed the peacekeepers had been "deliberately targeted".

Both countries are major contributors to UNIFIL whose peacekeepers are on the front line of the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a "full and immediate ceasefire".

Lebanon's military said Friday an Israeli strike on one of its positions in south Lebanon killed two soldiers.

In a show of support for Iran's ally Hezbollah, the speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited the site Saturday of a deadly Israeli strike earlier this week.

A source close to Hezbollah said the strike had targeted Hezbollah's security chief Wafiq Safa, but neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed he was the target.

Ghalibaf's Lebanon visit, a signal of Tehran's defiance, comes after Israel vowed to respond to Iran's second-ever direct attack.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has vowed that the response will be "deadly, precise and surprising".

The United States is pushing for a "proportionate" response that would not tip the region into a wider war, with President Joe Biden urging Israel to avoid striking Iranian nuclear facilities or energy infrastructure.

- Gaza deaths -

Israeli operations in Gaza continue, with the army laying siege to an area around Jabalia in the north, causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Adraee, the Israeli military spokesman, posted another evacuation warning Saturday for an area near Jabalia.

"The specified area, including the shelters within it, is considered a dangerous combat zone," Adraee said on X, ordering residents to move to the humanitarian zone in southern Gaza.

Some residents said they were not prepared to do so.

"They tell us to go south, but we won't go because of the dangers and the army is shooting at people there," 27-year-old Sami Asliya told AFP.

"There is no safe place, neither in the south nor in the north -- everyone is at risk of death," he said.

On Friday, Gaza's civil defense agency reported 30 people killed in Israeli strikes in the area, including on schools being used as shelter by displaced people.

An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy shelling, explosions and gunfire Saturday further south in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood.

Piles of fishing nets lay on land unused in the southern Lebanese port of Sidon on Tuesday as fishermen stayed ashore after the Israeli military warned of strikes against fighters along the coast.

Commercial vessels and leisure boats were anchored in the harbor, while the city's ancient fish market fell unusually quiet, with traders trying to peddle the catch from earlier in the week.

"The Lebanese army told us we weren't allowed to go out, and we're respecting that," said Mohammed Bidawi, a member of the local fishermen's union.

"If it continues like this, the market will close too."

After nearly a year of cross-border clashes, Israel intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon on September 23, killing more than 1,100 people and displacing over a million from their homes, according to official figures.

The Israeli army warned late Monday that it would expand its operations against Lebanese armed group Hezbollah to Lebanon's coast.

It warned people to stay away from the shore in the area south of the Al-Awali river, which flows into the sea to the north of Sidon.

Issam Haboush, another fisherman, said he was worried about his family.

"Fishing is the way we support our children. If we don't go out to sea, we won't be able to feed ourselves," he said, adding that hundreds of families depended on the trade.

Bidawi said the de facto ban on fishing in Sidon had plunged around "5,000 to 6,000 people" into difficulty, the latest blow after a huge financial crisis in the country since 2019.

"The fishermen and traders at the fish market are going to need help," he said.

Before the war, Lebanon's fleet of 3,000 fishing boats reaped in between 3,000 and 3,500 tons of fish each year, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said in 2021.

Fisherman Hamza Sonbol said he and his colleagues had become destitute overnight.

"We've become like the country's displaced," he said.

- 'Upsetting' -

Freediving instructor Marwan Hariri, 47, also has a boat in the port to take students out on for lessons.

"Since yesterday I've been feeling very down," he said.

He had already lost 70 percent of his students in the past year of border clashes, as they largely came from southern areas under heavy Israeli bombardment, he said.

"I haven't even been opening the diving center. I've just been going down to the sea to go spearfishing," he said.

Despite the financial crisis and the tensions in the south, he was still enjoying diving with his speargun which he said was a way to temporarily escape from the news.

On Monday, he put his catch up for auction among acquaintances and managed to sell it for $56.

Then the Israeli military issued its warning.

Despite the perfect weather conditions on Monday morning, when he went down to the beach, he saw no fishermen coming back on their boats.

"It was really upsetting," he said.

UN Warns against 'Catastrophic' Regional Conflict