UNIFIL: No Recent Blue Line Crossing between Lebanon and Israel

Irish UN peacekeepers check the site where a UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL convoy came under fire on Wednesday. (AFP via Getty Images)
Irish UN peacekeepers check the site where a UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL convoy came under fire on Wednesday. (AFP via Getty Images)
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UNIFIL: No Recent Blue Line Crossing between Lebanon and Israel

Irish UN peacekeepers check the site where a UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL convoy came under fire on Wednesday. (AFP via Getty Images)
Irish UN peacekeepers check the site where a UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL convoy came under fire on Wednesday. (AFP via Getty Images)

UNIFIL’s spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said on Thursday that no crossing of the Blue Line has been recorded recently between Lebanon and Israel.

Tenenti said the UNIFIL has inspected media reports claiming that a person has trespassed from Lebanon into Israel, according to dpa.

“The UNIFIL did not record any crossing of the Blue Line in the last few days,” Tenenti was quoted as saying in a statement published by Lebanon’s National News Agency on Thursday.

He added that Head of Mission and Force Commander of the UNIFIL Major General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz urged both sides to exercise self-control and to preserve stability.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army said it killed an armed suspect on Monday entering the country from Lebanon with a suicide vest and that investigations were ongoing to see if he has links to Hezbollah.

The Israeli army said soldiers stopped a car carrying the bombing suspect at a checkpoint Monday shortly after a roadside explosion seriously injured a driver near Megiddo Junction in the country’s north.

The suspect was wearing a suicide vest and had a rifle and a gun when he was stopped near the border with Lebanon. The army said it shot and killed the man and is questioning the driver.

The army said the device exploded at a 90-degree angle, which is unusual for the area. That led officials to suspect that the man infiltrated from Lebanon and may have been linked to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group.



Egypt’s Parliament Speaker Rejects Proposals for Taking in Palestinians from Gaza

 Two boys watch a crowd of Palestinians returning to northern Gaza, amid destroyed buildings, following Israel's decision to allow thousands of them to return for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)
Two boys watch a crowd of Palestinians returning to northern Gaza, amid destroyed buildings, following Israel's decision to allow thousands of them to return for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)
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Egypt’s Parliament Speaker Rejects Proposals for Taking in Palestinians from Gaza

 Two boys watch a crowd of Palestinians returning to northern Gaza, amid destroyed buildings, following Israel's decision to allow thousands of them to return for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)
Two boys watch a crowd of Palestinians returning to northern Gaza, amid destroyed buildings, following Israel's decision to allow thousands of them to return for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)

Egypt’s parliament speaker on Monday strongly rejected proposals to move Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, saying this could spread conflict to other parts of the Middle East.

The comments by Hanfy el-Gebaly, speaker of the Egyptian House of Representatives, came a day after US President Donald Trump urged Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from war-ravaged Gaza.

El-Gebaly, who didn’t address Trump’s comments directly, told a parliament session Monday that such proposals "are not only a threat to the Palestinians but also they also represent a severe threat to regional security and stability.”

“The Egyptian House of Representatives completely rejects any arrangements or attempts to change the geographical and political reality for the Palestinian cause,” he said.

On Sunday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting any “temporary or long-term” transfer of Palestinians out of their territories.

The ministry warned that such a move “threatens stability, risks expanding the conflict in the region and undermines prospects of peace and coexistence among its people.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right governing partners have long advocated what they describe as the voluntary emigration of large numbers of Palestinians and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Human rights groups have already accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, which United Nations experts have defined as a policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove the civilian population of another group from certain areas “by violent and terror-inspiring means.”