UN says 15 children killed in Lebanon

GENEVA: Fifteen children have been killed in Lebanon and 62 injured over the last seven days, the United Nations said on Friday, despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. UNICEF, the UN children's agency, called the figures 'staggering' and stressed that under international humanitarian law, children had to be protected at all times during conflict.
'According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, 77 children have reportedly been killed or injured over the past week alone,' UNICEF spokesman Ricardo Pires told a media briefing in Geneva. 'Fifteen children killed and 62 injured in seven days. That's an average of 11 children every 24 hours. 'We understand the vast majority of these children were impacted by airstrikes in south Lebanon. Only yesterday, seven children were killed and 30 injured,' he said.

A ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah was supposed to have taken effect on April 17 but has never been observed. Both sides accuse each other of violating it and justify their attacks by the other camp's alleged breaches. In total, since the ceasefire was announced, 55 children have been killed and 212 wounded, Pires said. Pires called for all parties to respect the ceasefire in full and to comply at all times with international humanitarian law, under which 'children and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times'.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war in early March when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel over the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli attacks, prompting Israeli strikes and a ground invasion. In recent days, Israel has issued repeated evacuation warnings to swathes of the southern coastal city of Tyre and carried out heavy strikes.
Meanwhile, Lebanese and Israeli military delegations were to hold security talks at the Pentagon, during which Beirut will demand Israel halt its attacks, which have intensified in recent days. The development comes as the United States and Hezbollah's backer Iran, were negotiating with Tehran, which insists the fighting in Lebanon must be included in any agreement ending the Middle East war.

Also on Friday, the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for seven southern Lebanese towns, two of them around 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Israel. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported several strikes across the south, and a wave of displacement as people fled the threatened towns. The attacks come a day after an Israeli strike just south of Beirut, only the second since an April 17 truce sought, unsuccessfully, to halt the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Israeli forces had crossed Lebanon's Litani River, which runs around 30 kilometres north of the countries' shared border. 'Our forces have crossed the Litani, they have moved up to the commanding terrain. We are operating in Beirut, in the Beqaa, across the entire front and are hitting Hezbollah head on,' he said during a visit to troops near the border, according to a video released by his office.
Lebanon's delegation includes six officers, headed by the army's director of operations, Georges Rizkallah. A Lebanese military source told AFP the delegation will 'emphasise the need for a ceasefire, and will present the army's plan for a state weapons monopoly and the extension of state authority across the country'. On the Israeli side, Brigadier General Amichai Levin, head of the strategic division within the army's planning directorate, is present in Washington for these talks, according to an Israeli military spokesman. The two countries, officially at war for decades, began direct talks in April with a fourth round expected in early June. — AFP