UN mission vows to continue in Lebanon

The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon insisted their operations will continue despite escalating Israeli ground attacks in the country's south, while a doctor in Gaza has defied Israeli orders to shut down his hospital.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, rejected repeated requests from Israel to vacate areas of their deployment along the border, insisting on continuing operations under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which aims to end the 2006 Lebanon war, Arab News reported.

UNIFIL reported serious concerns regarding "activities conducted by the Israeli army near the mission site 6-52, southeast of Maroun Al-Ras in the western sector within Lebanese territory". They said it is unacceptable to jeopardize the safety of peacekeeping forces while they carry out mandated tasks from the Security Council.

In the Gaza Strip, Hussam Abu Safia, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said the facility will remain open despite warnings from the Israeli military to shut down and evacuate. The doctor cited the lack of alternative hospitals providing services and treatment to children after a year of conflict.

"We will continue to provide services even if the army enters the hospital," he told Al Jazeera.

"We will continue to provide services because we are providing, first of all, humanitarian services that are not violating international humanitarian law, and we are urging all international organizations to support us."

The defiance from essential workers came as Israeli military operations expand from Gaza to Lebanon, forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of people amid constant bombings that have decimated homes and critical civilian infrastructures, such as schools and hospitals.

Fresh clashes

On Wednesday, Hezbollah said its fighters had pushed back advancing Israeli troops in clashes along the length of the border, a day after Israel said it had killed two successors to the militant group's slain leader.

Hezbollah has been launching rockets against Israel for a year in parallel with the conflict in Gaza and is now fighting in ground clashes that are spreading along Lebanon's mountainous frontier with Israel.

Rocket sirens sounded constantly across northern Israel on Wednesday, including in the major port city of Haifa, following heavy fire from Lebanon.

Later in the day, Israeli authorities said two people were killed in a northern town that was hit by rocket fire from Hezbollah. The military said about 20 projectiles had been launched in the barrage.

Since the escalation of hostilities late last month, more than 285,000 people — predominantly women, children and people with disabilities — have fled from Lebanon into Syria, according to a UN Population Flash Appeal update published on Tuesday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X on Wednesday that about 400,000 people were "being pressed yet again in Gaza" to move south to an area that is "overcrowded, polluted and lacking the basics for survival".

He emphasized how families have been ordered to evacuate several times between October last year and this May.

On Tuesday, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and UNIFIL chief Aroldo Lazaro issued a joint statement expressing regret that, after 12 months of repeated appeals for restraint between Israel and Lebanon, the protection of civilians and adherence to both international humanitarian law and a political process anchored in the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701, "have gone unheeded".

"Today, one year later, the near-daily exchanges of fire have escalated into a relentless military campaign, whose humanitarian impact is nothing short of catastrophic," they said.

Every missile or rocket launched, bomb dropped and ground raid conducted "pulls the parties further away from the vision outlined in Resolution 1701 (2006) and the conditions necessary for the enduring security of civilians on both sides of the Blue Line", it added, referring to the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel.

In the absence of an agreed border, the UN has identified a 120-kilometer withdrawal line known as the Blue Line, which UNIFIL monitors and patrols.

"A negotiated solution is the only pathway to restore the security and stability that civilians on both sides so desperately want and deserve," the statement said. "The time to act accordingly is now."

Agencies contributed to this story.