Austria says eight UNIFIL troops wounded in Lebanon rocket attack, IDF says Hezbollah responsible

Eight Austrian soldiers belonging to the UN peace-keeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) sustained slight and superficial injuries in a rocket strike on Camp Naqoura near the Israeli border, Austria’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

“We condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms and demand that it be investigated immediately,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was not clear where the attack came from, and none of the soldiers needed urgent medical care.

Later on Tuesday, an IDF source told The Jerusalem Post that Hezbollah was responsible for firing rockets at the UNIFIL soldiers. 

The IDF told the Post that it is accusing UNIFIL of a double standard, as there have been several incidents in the past where Hezbollah killed UNIFIL soldiers in Lebanon. 

UNIFIL confirmed that a rocket that hit its headquarters in Naqoura was fired from the north, likely by Hezbollah or an affiliated group.

A former UN Truce Supervision Organization soldier testified that UNIFIL was “totally subject to Hezbollah” when he worked in Lebanon 10 years ago in an interview with Danish news site B.T. in October. 

In an earlier instance, in June of 2023, a Lebanese military tribunal formally accused five Hezbollah terrorists of killing an Irish UN peacekeeper in 2022. 

The five accused are among seven already charged by Lebanon’s judiciary in January, but a new court document filed on Thursday identifies some of them as members of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that controls the part of southern Lebanon where the attack took place.

Danielle Greyman-Kennard and Reuters contributed to this report. 

JPost