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The United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) said three of its peacekeepers were killed in south Lebanon just hours apart in separate incidents, as peace remains elusive amid a nearly month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The UN said on Monday that an explosion of “unknown origin” destroyed a vehicle near the Bani Haiyyan municipality, killing two Indonesian peacekeepers. Two other peacekeepers were wounded, one severely.
This happened just hours after another peacekeeper was killed after a UNIFIL base was hit by a projectile near the southern Lebanese village of Adchit al-Qusayr. UNIFIL said it launched an investigation into both incidents but didn’t say who was responsible for the deaths overnight and into Monday.
All three peacekeepers were from the Indonesian army, UN officials said.
The UN peacekeeping force called on Hezbollah and Israel to uphold their obligations under international law and to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel.
The force monitors hostilities and is tasked with helping keep the peace along the demarcation line with Israel — an area that’s at the heart of clashes between Israel’s military and Hezbollah fighters.
Attacks on peacekeepers ‘grave violations’
The UN said on Monday that any deliberate attacks on its peacekeepers are “grave violations” of international humanitarian law and Security Council Resolution 1701 — a resolution that was adopted in 2006 and includes aiding the Lebanese armed forces in clearing the area of “any armed personnel, assets and weapons.”
“This is just one of a number of recent incidents that have jeopardized the safety [and] security of peacekeepers,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote in a post on X on Sunday, calling for accountability.
In response to the first death, Indonesia’s foreign ministry confirmed the peacekeeper was an Indonesian citizen. Any harm to peacekeepers is unacceptable, the ministry said, while reiterating its condemnation “of Israel’s attacks in southern Lebanon.”
Currently, more than 8,200 UN peacekeepers — otherwise known as Blue Helmets — from 47 countries are stationed in southern Lebanon, according to UNIFIL figures updated on March 23.
More recently, Israeli tank fire wounded Ghanaian soldiers on March 6 at a UN peacekeeping position in southern Lebanon. Israel’s military acknowledged its troops were behind the incident, but said they had responded to anti-tank missile fire from Hezbollah.
The deaths were the first casualties of peacekeepers in the latest round of escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that erupted on March 2, after Hezbollah launched missiles and drones into Israel for the first time in over a year, days into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Israel retaliated with bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs and has since expanded its ground invasion, which has displaced more than one million Lebanese.
Hundreds of peacekeepers killed over decades
The peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon was first established by the Security Council in 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and help restore order after Israel’s first invasion of the country.
Since then, at least 339 UNIFIL members have died while on duty, according to UN data, which was updated on Jan. 31.
In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a UN-proposed ceasefire to end the Israel-Lebanon war. But war broke out again in the wake of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In 2024, Israeli attacks were reported on peacekeepers weeks after it began a ground operation in Lebanon. Israel accused them of being in the way at the time, demanding that they leave the area.
Two UN peacekeepers from Sri Lanka were also injured in October 2024 by an Israeli strike near their watchtower in south Lebanon.
UN experts said that despite the ceasefire agreement signed in November 2024, Israel continued to strike Lebanese territory “almost daily,” adding to the mounting toll of civilian deaths, injuries and destruction.
UN sounds alarm on attacks last year
In November 2025, a year after the truce agreement was signed, Morris Tidball-Binz, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, sounded the alarm on renewed attacks and near-attacks on UNIFIL.
On Nov. 16, 2025, an Israeli Merkava tank fired on a UNIFIL patrol inside Lebanese territory, with shells landing only a few metres from the peacekeepers and endangering their lives, the UN said in a news release.
The UN said it followed an incident on Oct. 26 2025, when an Israeli drone flew close to a UNIFIL patrol operating near Kfar Kila and dropped a grenade, moments before an Israeli tank fired at them.
Three journalists in southern Lebanon were killed by a targeted Israeli strike Saturday. Top officials in Lebanon condemned the strike, with President Joseph Aoun calling it a ‘flagrant crime that violates all laws and agreements that protect journalists.’ Israel claimed without providing evidence that one of the journalists was a Hezbollah intelligence operative. The latest deaths bring the number of journalists and media workers killed this year in Lebanon to five.
UNIFIL’s efforts have been criticized, with some questioning the impact of its peacekeeping role in the region and whether its mandate should be renewed.
Israel, which has invaded Lebanon by ground, has said it intends to control a buffer zone up to the Litani River, which runs about 30 kilometres north of the Lebanese border with Israel.
Its ground troops have been pushing into Lebanese border towns and demolishing homes in the area.
More than 1,200 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities. They include more than 120 children, nearly 80 women and dozens of paramedics.
Israel’s military said on Monday that a sixth soldier had been killed in fighting in southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s armed forces, which has not been fighting Israeli forces, said that a Lebanese soldier had been killed in an Israeli air strike, along with eight other soldiers who have been killed by Israel since March 2.
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