Serra Contacts Lebanese, Israeli Army Commanders to Urge Restraint over Naameh Strike
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon command announced on Friday that it had received Israeli confirmation that it had carried out an airstrike in the Naameh Valley between Beirut and Sidon.
It said in a statement that Force Commander Major General Paolo Serra had contacted the Lebanese and Israeli army chiefs to urge them to exercise restraint.
It added that Israel said that the airstrike was a retaliation to the rocket attacks launched from southern Lebanon against it on Thursday.
The location of the airstrike lies outside UNIFIL's area of jurisdiction and it therefore does not have further information about the incident, continued the statement.
Serra stressed the need for the Lebanese and Israeli sides to refrain from resorting to force, calling on them to cooperate with UNIFIL in order to ease the tensions and prevent escalation, which may have dangerous repercussions on the security and stability of the region.
The statement revealed that he will meet with the Lebanese and Israeli army chiefs to discuss the latest strikes.
The Israeli air force struck a Palestinian group in Lebanon on Friday, officials said, hours after a different organization said it fired four rockets at the Jewish state from Lebanon.
Israeli aircraft "targeted a terror site located between Beirut and Sidon in response to a barrage of four rockets launched at northern Israel yesterday (Thursday)," the military said.
The state-run National News Agency said the target was a position of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a hardline but secular militant group which said it had nothing to do with Thursday's rocket fire.
The salvo of four rockets, which caused damage but no casualties, was claimed by the Abdullah Azzam Brigades -- an al-Qaida-linked group which claimed similar rocket fire on Israel in 2009 and 2011.
Israeli army spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai said on Thursday that the rockets were "launched by the global jihad terror organization" -- an apparent reference to al-Qaida.
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