Sidon:
The Lebanese army said an Israeli attack on a vehicle near a checkpoint in the southern city of Sidon killed three people and injured troops and U.N. peacekeepers on Thursday.
“The Israeli enemy targeted a car as it drove through the Awali checkpoint,” the army said, the main northern entrance to Sidon.
With the exception of some limited attacks, Sidon, a Sunni Muslim-majority city, has been relatively spared from the deadly airstrikes on southern Lebanon in Israel’s war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
The attack killed three people, all passengers in the targeted vehicle, the military said.
According to the army, three Lebanese soldiers manning the checkpoint were also injured, along with members of UNIFIL’s Malaysian contingent.
The UNIFIL peacekeeping force said a “convoy bringing newly arrived peacekeepers to southern Lebanon was passing through Sidon when a drone strike occurred nearby.”
“Five peacekeepers were slightly injured and treated on the spot by the Lebanese Red Cross. They will continue to their posts,” it said, urging the warring sides to “avoid actions that endanger peacekeepers or civilians.”
UNIFIL has thousands of peacekeepers
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said a UNIFIL vehicle was on “the same roadway” during the attack, causing UN peacekeepers to suffer “minor injuries”.
An AFP correspondent in the area spotted the charred, mangled remains of the targeted vehicle just a few meters away from an army checkpoint.
The correspondent saw UNIFIL peacekeepers gathering on the sidewalk at the checkpoint, some of whom were bloodied and injured after the raid, as paramedics tended to their injuries.
The UNIFIL convoy consisted of a number of buses, the correspondent said.
Israeli raids have intensified in recent weeks in Haret Saida, a densely populated suburb of Sidon with a significant population of Shia Muslims.
Israel has also increasingly launched targeted attacks on vehicles. A woman was killed on Thursday in an Israeli attack on a car on a key road connecting the capital Beirut with the Beqaa Valley and Syria, a security source told AFP.
Lebanon’s National News Agency previously reported that “an enemy drone attacked a car in Araya,” adding that the route was blocked to vehicular traffic due to the attack.
The highway connects Beirut with the Syrian capital Damascus, through the Lebanese mountains.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)