World
UNIFIL ignored Hezbollah terror build up for 18 years, Israel's UN ambassador says
JERUSALEM – Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon on Sunday accused the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) of failing to enforce its mission to prevent the U.S.-designated terrorist movement Hezbollah from establishing military outposts on the border with Israel.
Israel’s incursion into southern Lebanon has revealed a military outpost about a mere 300 yards north of the border with the Jewish state that is filled with explosives and mines, according to Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“Hezbollah terrorists are using UNIFIL outposts as hiding places and as places of ambushes. The U.N.’s insistence on keeping the UNIFIL soldiers in the line of fire is incomprehensible,” said Danon.
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An IDF infographic showing what it claims are Hezbollah launches toward Israel from locations near UNIFIL posts. (IDF Spokesman’s Unit)
He added “For 18 years, UNIFIL personnel ignored the Hezbollah bases along the border and did not report any Resolution 1701 violations, which states that only the Lebanese army is allowed to operate in the area.”
Danon continued that “While the IDF is working against the terrorist organization Hezbollah, we requested that UNIFIL forces move five kilometers (approx 3.1 miles) north of the border in order to stay out of the line of fire. Unfortunately, at this time, this request has not been accepted.”
The U.S. and other world powers passed Resolution 1701 at the United Nations Security Council in 2006 to aid the Lebanese Armed Forces in assuming military control over the region, replacing Hezbollah, between the Litani River and the southern border in Lebanon. The goal of the 2006 UNIFIL mandate was to prevent a third war between Israel and the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hezbollah. Israel fought Hezbollah in 1982 and in the summer of 2006.
Hezbollah’s decision to join Hamas’ war on Israel a day after the Sunni terrorist movement Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7 revealed to Israeli war planners and counter-terrorism experts UNIFIL had failed its mission.
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon speaks to the members of the media before the United Nations Security Council meeting, following a ballistic missile attack on Israel, at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Oct. 2, 2024. (REUTERS/Stephani Spindel)
Hamas slaughtered nearly 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7, including over 30 Americans. A lethal Hezbollah drone attack on Sunday murdered four IDF soldiers and wounded nearly 60 Israelis.
Hezbollah’s massive military buildup of its presence on Israel’s northern border since the 2006 war has caused an Israeli government re-examination of the clear and present danger of the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist movement following Hamas’ invasion of Israel’s southern border on Oct. 7.
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The Palestinian flag and the flag of Hezbollah wave in the wind on a pole as peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon patrol the border area between Lebanon and Israel on Hamames hill in the Khiyam area of southern Lebanon on Oct. 13, 2023. (Photo by JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images)
The IDF said in a statement that “Over the past month, approximately 25 rockets and missiles have been launched at Israeli communities and IDF troops from Hezbollah’s terrorist compounds embedded near UNIFIL posts in southern Lebanon, exploiting their proximity to U.N. forces. One of the attacks resulted in the deaths of two IDF soldiers. Hezbollah uses compounds located above and below ground to carry out terrorist attacks against the State of Israel.”
A Hezbollah weapons cache located near a UNIFIL post by IDF troops in southern Lebanon.
UNIFIL issued a statement on Sunday, announcing, “Early this morning, peacekeepers at a U.N. position in Ramyah observed three platoons of IDF soldiers crossing the Blue Line into Lebanon. At around 4:30 a.m., while peacekeepers were in shelters, two IDF Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position. They requested multiple times that the base turn out its lights. The tanks left about 45 minutes later after UNIFIL protested through our liaison mechanism, saying that IDF presence was putting peacekeepers in danger.”
UNIFIL added “peacekeepers at the same position reported the firing of several rounds 100 meters north, which emitted smoke. Despite putting on protective masks, fifteen peacekeepers suffered effects, including skin irritation and gastrointestinal reactions, after the smoke entered the camp. The peacekeepers are receiving treatment.”
A UNIFIL patrol drives past the wreckage of a car that was targeted in an Israeli strike early on March 2, 2024 near the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura. (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
Danon said “The details of the incident involving UNIFIL soldiers in southern Lebanon are currently being investigated. In the coming days, we will continue to promote a dialogue on this issue with the relevant parties at the UN.”
When Fox News Digital approached UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti for a comment about Danon’s criticism, Tenenti did not immediately respond.
Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on UNIFIL to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon because they are being used as “human shields” to advance the Iranian regime-backed Hezbollah war machinery.
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An Israeli soldier walks by a tunnel entrance near an observation post of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon in the southern Lebanese village of Naqoura along the border with Israel. (Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Speaking in Hebrew, Netanyahu told the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, “It is time for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the areas of combat.”
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general, said “Against the backdrop of the ongoing hostilities in southern Lebanon and despite attacks that have hit United Nations positions, injuring a number of peacekeepers in the past several days, UNIFIL peacekeepers remain in all positions and the U.N. flag continues to fly.”
Dujarric added that “The Secretary-General reiterates that the safety and security of U.N. personnel and property must be guaranteed and that the inviolability of U.N. premises must be respected at all times without qualification. In a deeply worrying incident that occurred today, the entrance door of a U.N. position was deliberately breached by IDF armored vehicles.”
Hezbollah fighters form a human barrier during the funeral procession of slain top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Aug. 1, 2024. (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)
The U.N. chief called “on all parties, including the IDF, to refrain from any and all actions that put our peacekeepers at risk. The Secretary-General takes the opportunity to reiterate the call for a cessation of hostilities and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.”
Guterres did not address that the Hezbollah tunnel shafts discovered by the IDF were located a mere 300 feet away from a UNIFIL peacekeeping observation post, as well as the presence of other Hezbollah military installations in a zone that was required by UNSC 1701 to be free from Hezbollah explosives and armaments. The elaborate Hezbollah tunnels were found west of the Lebanese village of Labbouneh.
The United Nations Security Council will once again discuss the situation in Lebanon later on Monday.
Pope Leo XIV left the Canary Islands for Rome on Friday in a Falcon plane offered by Spanish King Felipe VI after his original aircraft suffered a technical glitch, according to reporters at the scene.
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The flight took off just after 6:00 pm and is expected to arrive in Rome at around 11:00 pm. The pope wrapped up a week-long visit to Spain on Friday.
The pontiff’s departure from Tenerife was delayed earlier on Friday by a technical problem with the plane which led him to disembark, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
Spain’s King Felipe VI, who had just said goodbye to the pontiff on the runway, boarded the Iberia airline plane and both disembarked and returned to the terminal.
About 80 journalists remained on the jet, along with Vatican officials and members of the clergy.
“The departure of the papal flight has been delayed by half an hour due to a technical problem with the aircraft,” the communications service for the papal trip in Spain said in a brief statement.
The pilot initially told passengers there was a technical fault but later specified a “startup failure of the engine,” which he said was likely caused by wind conditions.
“Our maintenance team suggests towing the aircraft, positioning it into the wind, and attempting a new engine start,” the pilot told those on board.
“We will try this. If it is successful, we can depart.”
The glitch marked an unusual end to an otherwise successful trip to Madrid, Barcelona and the Canary Islands.
Pope Leo XIV pressed his migration message and also inaugurated the new tower of the Sagrada Familia basilica.
It was the first time in decades that a papal flight had experienced a problem so serious that it required the pope to change planes.
Veteran Vatican reporters, some of whom were on the Iberia plane, recalled a few plane-related incidents during the pontificate of St. John Paul II.
During a 1986 return trip from India, John Paul II’s plane was forced to land in Naples because of a snowstorm in Rome. The passengers and pope took a special train back to Rome.
In 1988 en route to Lesotho, bad weather forced the late pope’s plane to land in South Africa, a country he had excluded from his African trip at the time because of apartheid. He was later driven into the kingdom.
Typically on papal trips, the Italian national carrier ITA Airways brings the pope to his destination and that country’s national carrier brings him home, with ITA sometimes doing the round trip if the voyage is particularly long or to a place that doesn’t have the capacity.
The flights are charters, with the pope, Vatican delegation and security occupying the front of the plane and the 70 or so journalists seated in coach.
Iberia had proudly provided video earlier in the trip of Pope Leo XIV seated in the cockpit, smiling broadly as the plane carried him from Madrid to Barcelona and then Barcelona to the Canary Islands.
In both cases, Spanish military aircraft provided an airborne escort, a sign of respect for visiting dignitaries and in one clip of the video the pope is seen waving to the escorting pilot.
Additional sources • AP, AFP
World
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A new analysis by Oxfam highlights the exponential rise in attacks by Israeli settlers and military forces in the occupied West Bank: in the first few months of 2026 alone, there were over 540 incidents and “in three years, the number of Palestinian civilians killed has exceeded that of the previous 17 years”, mainly children. According to the report, based on an analysis of data provided by the United Nations, “it is clear that Israel’s annexation plan is accelerating, with mass forced displacements, increased restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement and an unprecedented escalation of violence by settlers and the army”. A plan of ethnic cleansing and annexation that, since 2023, has caused over 46,000 people to be displaced, the construction of over 925 barriers that impede the movement of 3 million people, and an unprecedented wave of violence that has claimed over 1,200 lives, including nearly 270 children. In particular, between 2006 and 2022, Oxfam points out, there were 1,036 victims, including 225 children, whilst since 2023 alone, 1,244 have been recorded, with 268 children killed. This means that, over the last 20 years, one in five killings involved a child, around 22 per cent. By contrast, in the first 17 years under review, 86 Israeli settlers were killed by Palestinians, including 12 children, whilst there were 43 victims, including 10 children, between 2023 and 2025. “The massacre of civilians we are witnessing is painful and disturbing,” said Paolo Pezzati, spokesperson for humanitarian crises at Oxfam Italia – “Whilst the eyes of the world were rightly focused on the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, following the atrocities committed by Hamas and other armed groups in 2023, an unprecedented wave of violence was unfolding across the West Bank, which has now escalated into a systematic plan of ethnic cleansing. In this context, we are therefore launching an urgent appeal for all necessary diplomatic pressure to be brought to bear on Israel to halt the ongoing annexation plan,” concludes Pezzati.
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The US Central Command stated on X that it had intercepted an oil tanker, the third in a week, accused of violating the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. US Central Command says it struck the M/T Jalveer, flying the flag of Guinea-Bissau, “as it attempted to transport oil from Iran through the Gulf of Oman”. “A US aircraft fired two Hellfire missiles at the ship’s engine room after the crew repeatedly refused to obey orders from US forces,” Centcom said.
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“Not only because of what is happening in Lebanon, but also given the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, it is clear that the European Council will need to reflect on the direction of relations between the European Union and Israel.” This was stated by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Chamber of Deputies, in her address ahead of the EU Council meeting. “On this,” she added, “I would like, for once, to see a debate here that goes beyond the emphasis on facile polemics, which certainly yields an immediate return in terms of visibility, but does not reflect the strategic importance that the issue holds for Italia.”
World
Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol sentenced to 30 years over North Korea drone flights
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A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison Friday in a case that accused him of ordering drone flights over North Korea in an effort to justify his declaration of martial law.
Yoon, 65, was sentenced alongside former Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun by the Seoul Central District Court.
The ousted president was previously sentenced to life in prison for leading an insurrection following his declaration of martial law in December 2024.
North Korea accused South Korea of flying drones over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets on three occasions in October 2024.
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South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a hearing of his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Feb. 11, 2025. (Lee Jin-man/AP)
Then-Defense Minister Kim initially issued a vague denial before South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it could neither confirm nor deny the allegations.
Although tensions between the two Koreas escalated following the incident, the drone flights did not lead to any military clashes.
Prosecutors accused Yoon of attempting to create a crisis with North Korea while plotting an authoritarian power grab aimed at removing political opponents and consolidating control.
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Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stage a rally outside the Seoul High Court in Seoul on April 29, 2026. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
Before declaring martial law, Yoon delivered a televised address accusing liberal lawmakers of sympathizing with North Korea.
Yoon has argued that he possessed the constitutional authority to declare martial law and said the move was intended to draw attention to what he viewed as obstruction by opposition parties.
His attempt to impose martial law lasted roughly six hours before lawmakers voted to overturn it amid mass public protests.
Yoon was arrested in July 2025 and continues to face multiple criminal proceedings.
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South Korea’s ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol arrives at Seoul Central District Court in Seoul to attend his trial on charges related to declaring martial law on Dec. 3, 2025. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
The insurrection verdict has been appealed by both Yoon and prosecutors, who had sought the death penalty.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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