(Refiles to fix word order paragraph 5)<\/p>\n
By Angelo Amante<\/p>\n
ROME, April 8 (Reuters) – Italy summoned the Israeli ambassador on Wednesday to demand an \u200cexplanation over shots fired at an Italian convoy in a U.N. \u200cmission in Lebanon, the foreign minister said, warning Israeli forces had “no authority to touch” Rome’s troops.<\/p>\n
The \u200bU.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along a demarcation line with Israel – an area that has seen major clashes between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.<\/p>\n
“Israeli warning shots have damaged one \u200cof our vehicles; fortunately, no \u2060one was injured,” Antonio Tajani told a question session in the lower house of parliament. He later wrote on X \u2060that he had ordered that the Israeli ambassador be summoned.<\/p>\n
A defence ministry statement said the Italian logistics convoy was travelling from Shama to Beirut on Wednesday when, \u200babout 2 \u200bkm after departure, the Israeli military \u200bfired warning shots. The convoy immediately \u200cstopped and returned to base, it said.<\/p>\n
The incident came as Israel carried out its heaviest strikes on Lebanon since the conflict with militant group Hezbollah broke out early last month, saying a ceasefire suspending the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran did not apply to Lebanon.<\/p>\n
“Endangering convoys clearly identified with the UN flag \u200ccannot be tolerated. This is serious behavior \u200bthat risks compromising the safety of peacekeepers and \u200bthe credibility of the mission \u200bitself,” Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said.<\/p>\n
Crosetto called on the United \u200cNations to urgently engage with Israeli \u200bauthorities to clarify \u200bwhat happened and to “adopt all necessary measures to guarantee the safety of the Italian contingent and all UNIFIL personnel.”<\/p>\n
UNIFIL comprised about 7,500 peacekeepers as \u200bof March 30, according \u200cto the mission’s website, and Italy is one of the main \u200bcontributors with more than 750 soldiers deployed.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, editing \u200bby Gavin Jones and Ros Russell)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Refiles to fix word order paragraph 5) By Angelo Amante ROME, April 8 (Reuters) – Italy summoned the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[469,1217,37,3794,3799,5,3796,3800,3795,3817,3797],"class_list":{"0":"post-5105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-antonio-tajani","9":"tag-guido-crosetto","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-israeli-ambassador","12":"tag-israeli-troops","13":"tag-italy","14":"tag-lebanon","15":"tag-shots-fired","16":"tag-southern-lebanon","17":"tag-unifil","18":"tag-warning-shots"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}