Peacekeepers wounded in Israel strike in Lebanon, UN says

At least five U.N. peacekeepers were wounded in an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Thursday, the United Nations reported, in a raid that also killed three civilians.

Israel, which has not commented on the incident in Lebanon's Sidon city, launched a barrage of strikes after Hezbollah said it carried out a missile attack targeting a military base near Israel's main international airport on Wednesday.

Hezbollah and Israel have been at war since late September, when Israel broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.

As mediation efforts continue to stall, the U.S. State Department said Secretary Antony Blinken would "continue to pursue an end to the war in Gaza" and in Lebanon before handing over to the administration of President-elect Donald Trump in January.

In Gaza, the civil defense agency reported that 12 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced people on Thursday.

"Women and children were torn apart by F-16 jets and missiles weighing a ton," said witness Ibrahim al-Madhoun at the site of the strike in Gaza City.

Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on Israel last year in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the ongoing Gaza war.

The raid in which the U.N. peacekeepers were wounded struck near an army checkpoint in Sidon, Lebanon's main city.

The Lebanese army stated that Israel struck a car at a checkpoint, killing three civilians and injuring three soldiers, as well as members of the Malaysian contingent of the U.N. peacekeeping force, UNIFIL.

"Five peacekeepers were lightly injured," UNIFIL said in a...