BEIRUT: A Lebanese army site on the outskirts of the border town of Alma Al-Shaab came under machine gun fire from the Israeli army on Wednesday. Nobody was injured in the incident.
Israeli artillery also targeted the outskirts of Mays Al-Jabal, Wazzani, Jebbayn, Chihine and Kfarkela.
A statement from Hezbollah said it in turn had attacked “the newly installed espionage equipment at the Al-Raheb site, hitting it directly and destroying it.”
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said air defenses had intercepted a “suspicious aerial object” in the Ras Naqoura area without activating any sirens.
“Warplanes attacked a military building containing Hezbollah members in the Naqoura area. The planes also attacked Hezbollah buildings in Ramyah and Al-Tiri in southern Lebanon,” he said. A raid on the town of Naqoura caused minor injuries to several citizens.
The head of the United Nations Interim Force in southern Lebanon, Gen. Aroldo Lazaro, urged all parties to cease their fire, recommit to Resolution 1701, and begin the work toward a political and diplomatic solution, which he said was the only way to resolve the situation.
The security situation in the area meant UNIFIL did not hold any celebrations to mark the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers on Wednesday.
In a statement, Gen. Lazaro said: “The death and destruction we have seen on both sides of the Blue Line is heartbreaking. Too many lives have been lost and disrupted. Thousands of people remain displaced and have lost their homes and their livelihoods. As peacekeepers, we recommit each day to our work to restore stability.”
Peacekeepers from 49 nations are currently in the south and report regularly to the Security Council.
Yesterday, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French president’s special envoy to Lebanon, met with the head of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, MP Mohammad Raad, at its office in Beirut.
He arrived on Tuesday evening on his sixth mission to discuss developments in the country with Lebanese officials.
Le Drian met with several officials, including caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri, along with other heads of opposition Christian parties and the National Moderation bloc made up of mostly Sunni deputies.
According to the leaked information, the French official insisted on the need for consultation among Lebanese powers to name a president.
Le Drian warned: “Lebanon’s political feature will be gone if the crisis remains and if the presidential vacuum persists. Lebanon will save nothing but its geographical feature.”
Berri assured Le Drian that he would “be adhering to calling for unconditional consultations focused on the presidential election and moving to the parliament to conduct successive voting rounds with a list of candidates until a new president of the republic is elected.”

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Houthi militia on Wednesday said that they had attacked another commercial ship in the Mediterranean as part of the fourth phase of their missile and drone campaign against ships in support of the Palestinian people.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said that the missile and drone forces hit a Greece-flagged oil and chemical ship, Minerva Antonia, in the Mediterranean, the second such claim in less than a week.
He also said the militia had attacked the Marshall Island-flagged bulk ship Laax and the Malta-flagged bulk carriers Morea and Sealady in the Red Sea.
Those ships were targeted because they breached a ban on sailing to Israel.
The Houthi official said that they launched cruise missiles against two American ships, Alba and Maersk Hartford, in the Arabian Sea.
Last week, the Houthis claimed their first strike on a ship in the Mediterranean, as they extended their missile and drone operations into new waters.
Since November, the Houthis have seized one commercial ship, sunk another, and fired hundreds of ballistic missiles, drones and remotely controlled and explosives-laden boats at commercial and naval ships in international waters off Yemen, as well as in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.
The Houthis say they want to put pressure on Israel to end its war on Gaza while also targeting US and UK ships for backing Israel and bombing Yemen.
The Houthis’ announcement of new attacks came hours after the US Central Command reported that the Houthis fired five ballistic missiles from areas under their control at international ships in the Red Sea on Tuesday, three of which struck the bulk carrier Laax.
According to the US military, the ship’s crew is safe and sailing to its destination and that neither the US-led marine coalition nor any other international ship reported being hit by the other Houthi missiles.
Five drones fired by the Houthis over the Red Sea on Tuesday morning failed to reach their target after being destroyed by CENTCOM forces.
Two UK maritime agencies reported on Tuesday that a commercial ship in the Red Sea was damaged after being struck by three missiles off Hodeida in Yemen.
At the same time, Houthi media said on Tuesday that US and UK aircraft carried out two raids on the Al-Jabanah area in the western province of Hodeida, but provided no specifics about the targets.
The US and the UK have conducted airstrikes on Houthi-controlled Yemen, saying they are targeting drone and missile launchers as well as storage sites.