HEZBOLLAH fighters and Israeli troops fought fierce battles in different areas in south Lebanon today, including in a coastal town that is home to the headquarters of United Nations peacekeepers.

A spokesman for UN peacekeeping force Unifil told reporters they are monitoring “heavy clashes” in the coastal town of Naqoura and the village of Chamaa to the north-east.

Unifil’s headquarters are located in Naqoura in Lebanon’s south close to the Israeli border.

The UN body’s spokesman Andrea Tenenti said: “We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases.”

Four Italian soldiers were injured after two exploding rockets hit the UN peacekeeping mission base today in Chamaa in southern Lebanon, Italy’s defence ministry said.

The incident was the latest in which UN peacekeeping posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on October 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.

Defence Minister Guido Crosetto called today’s attack “intolerable.” He said that he will try to speak to the new Israeli Defence Minister to ask him “to avoid using the Unifil bases as a shield.”

Meanwhile the humanitarian crisis is deepening in Gaza.

Huge crowds of desperate people crammed themselves in front of a bakery in the Gaza Strip for the second day in a row, desperate to get their share of bread after bakeries closed for five days due to a flour shortage and the lack of aid.

“This is the third day that I have come to Zadna Bakery and I still cannot get bread. I have children to feed,” said Majdi Yaghi, a displaced man from Gaza City.

The price of a small bag of pita bread has increased to $16 (£13), a bag of pasta now costs $4 (£3) and a small bag of sugar costs nearly $14 (£11).

That has left many Palestinian families surviving on one meal a day and reliant on charitable kitchens to survive.

Nour Kanani, a displaced man from Khan Younis, said “there is nothing. It is a crisis in every sense of the word. There is no flour, no charities and no food.”

On Thursday the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister and Mohammed Deif, a Hamas military leader.

The three are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.