Israel admits pounding Lebanon, claims Hezbollah violated ceasefire

Tel Aviv: Claiming that Hezbollah committed a ceasefire violation, Israel admitted that it pounded Lebanon over the last two days. It described its action as efforts to thwart alleged violations by Hezbollah.

Israel's military admitted in a statement that it had targeted a church in Lebanon, IANS reported. Israel claimed that it targeted militants of Hezbollah's Khiam ground defence anti-tank missile and artillery units. The militant forces claimed to have attacked Israeli troops from the church.

"Over the past day, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) operated in several locations in Lebanon to remove threats to the State of Israel that were in violation of the ceasefire agreement," IANS quoted Israel's statement. "The IDF remains in Lebanon and acts against any threat to the State of Israel."

Meanwhile, on Sunday, French diplomats warned that Israel had violated the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon in at least 52 separate incidents. France cautioned that such breaches risk undermining the fragile agreement.

The ceasefire, signed last week, was intended to halt the deadly cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that erupted last October.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine informed that it is stopping aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing into the enclave, the Associated Press reported. The agency blamed Israeli policies for the breakdown of law and order in war-torn-Gaza.

The decision could worsen Gaza's humanitarian crisis as a second cold, rainy winter sets in, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in squalid tent camps and reliant on international aid. Experts already warned of famine in the north, which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October.