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.
World
Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.
Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.
There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.
Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.
___
Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
World
Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.
The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.
The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.
On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.
“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”
The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence.
“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.
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Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine
Published on
Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.
Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.
They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.
Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.
Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.
“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.
He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.
“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”
The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.
He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.
Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.
They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.
The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.
Additional sources • AP
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