Policemen inspect the burnt remains of a UNIFIL vehicle, set ablaze by protesters, on the road leading to Beirut’s international airport on Feb. 14, 2025. (Credit: Ibrahim Amro/AFP)
BEIRUT — At least one United Nations' peacekeeper was wounded on Friday after a group of people allegedly aligned with Hezbollah and participating in a protest along the airport road set a U.N. peacekeepers car alight near the Beirut airport.
According to a statement released by the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), its convoy was attacked as it was en route to taking troops to the airport. UNIFIL’s outgoing Deputy Force Commander, who was returning home having ended his mission with the peacekeepers, was injured.
"We are shocked by this outrageous attack on peacekeepers who have been serving to restore security and stability to south Lebanon during a difficult time," the statement reads. "Attacks on peacekeepers are flagrant violations of international law and may amount to war crimes. We demand a full and immediate investigation by Lebanese authorities and for all perpetrators to be brought to justice."
The incident comes against a backdrop of heightened tensions as a result of an Iranian airplane being refused permission to land in Lebanon on Thursday. Demonstrations against the ban on Iranian planes were held in various neighborhoods within Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday.
The Lebanese Army intervened at the scene and pursued those thought to be responsible. Footage posted online shows several dozen soldiers deployed along the road around the burning vehicles.
The army vowed to act “firmly,” accusing demonstrations "marked by acts of vandalism" as having resulted in "assaults on soldiers, attacks on UNIFIL vehicles and an attempt to close the airport road,” it said in a statement.
The army warned against “any action likely to create internal tensions with unforeseeable consequences, especially during this delicate period the country is going through,” and said it would act “firmly to prevent any breach of civil peace and arrest troublemakers.”
While local media claimed that one of the vehicles attacked was that of UNIFIL commander Araldo Lazaro, a spokesperson for the peacekeeping force denied this information, confirming that "the commander's vehicle was not attacked today."
On Thursday evening, the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani announced that the Lebanese government had canceled permits for two flights that had operated on a weekly basis between Iran and Lebanon.
Amani linked the decision to accusations made earlier this week by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and Hezbollah were using civilian flights from Iran to smuggle funds to Hezbollah.
More than 10,000 peacekeepers are stationed in southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL has been deployed since 1978 as a buffer against Israel. Their duties include monitoring the Blue Line, the U.N. demarcation line between the two countries.
Before the war between Hezbollah and Israel broke out in October 2023, in parallel with that in Gaza, tensions between UNIFIL troops and residents of the South sometimes resulted in confrontations, one of which led to the death an Irish peacekeeper, Sean Rooney, in December 2022.