South Korean court sentences former president to life in prison

(LONDON) — United Nations peacekeepers operating in southern Lebanon have been fired upon around 20 times since the resumption this month of hostilities there between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia, a spokesperson for the force told ABC News.

Around 7,500 personnel from 48 countries make up the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mission, tasked with monitoring the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in support of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

UNIFIL peacekeepers have regularly been caught in the crossfire between the warring sides in recent years, with intense bouts of violence in southern Lebanon touched off by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Iranian-backed Hamas militants into southern Israel and the subsequent war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which Hezbollah joined in support of Hamas.

Limited respite secured by a November 2024 ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah has now given way to another round of conflict, sparked by the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran in late February. Hezbollah joined the conflict on March 2, firing projectiles into northern Israel, seemingly in support of their patrons in Tehran.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said the attacks were a response to Israeli “transgressions” since the signing of the 2024 ceasefire, which he described as “excessive.”

The Israel Defense Forces said this week that the group had fired over 2,000 rockets and drones toward northern Israel during the conflict to date. A 27-year-old Israeli woman was killed by a Hezbollah rocket on Tuesday.

More than 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced by Israel’s offensive and evacuation orders, according to U.N. data. More than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Lebanon in the latest round of fighting, the country’s health ministry said.

Peacekeepers are now back in the line of fire from both sides. Of the roughly 20 firing incidents so far recorded since Feb. 28, UNIFIL spokesperson Kandice Ardiel told ABC News that a preliminary count found that around 60% were of unknown origin, 25% were attributed to the IDF and 15% to non-state actors on the Lebanese side — “most likely” Hezbollah.

Four UNIFIL peacekeepers have so far been injured in two separate incidents, Ardiel said. Three of the injuries were minor and one was severe. The peacekeeper who sustained severe injuries is now in a stable condition, she said.

UNIFIL has not yet established responsibility for the incidents that caused casualties, Ardiel added. 

However, the IDF has acknowledged responsibility for one incident, when it said that on March 6 an Israeli tank mistakenly fired on a UNIFIL position, wounding Ghanaian peacekeepers.

Hezbollah is not known to have claimed responsibility for any recent attacks on UNIFIL forces.

Ardiel credited UNIFIL’s security measures for the relatively low number of casualties to date.

Even the force’s headquarters in the coastal city of Naqoura, she said, “has been hit with bullets, shrapnel, fragments of intercepted projectiles.” On Monday, the headquarters was also struck by “a rocket fired by a non-state actor — likely Hezbollah,” Ardiel said.

UNIFIL was first deployed to Lebanon in 1978, tasked with monitoring the ceasefire that ended an Israeli incursion into the south of the country.

Since 2006, UNIFIL has been tasked with monitoring the cessation of cross-border hostilities following a major conflict between the IDF and Hezbollah and supporting the planned — but ultimately unrealized — Hezbollah withdrawal from the area and the redeployment of the LAF in its place. That plan was set out by U.N. Security Council resolution 1701.

The U.S.-brokered 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah restated UNIFIL’s role in supporting the LAF’s disarmament of all non-state armed groups — prime among them Hezbollah — south of the Litani River. The LAF claimed to have achieved the first phase of this plan in January, but Hezbollah’s daily fire toward Israel seems to undercut those claims.

Israeli forces retained control of five positions on Lebanese territory and continued strikes against alleged Hezbollah targets all across Lebanon despite the ceasefire deal. Hezbollah was vocally critical of the continued Israeli presence and attacks but did not retaliate.

The resumption of hostilities earlier this month prompted a major new Israeli campaign. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the IDF to “accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes in the line of contact villages, to thwart threats to Israeli communities, in accordance with the model of Beit Hanoun and Rafah,” referring to Israel’s destruction of Gaza towns during operations against Hamas.

Katz sent thousands of additional troops into southern Lebanon, vowing to seize the territory up to the Litani River to create what he called a “defensive buffer.” The effort included the destruction of several bridges along the Litani, which Katz claimed were being used by Hezbollah.

Ardiel said the destruction of those bridges — which she described as “vital arteries” — would complicate UNIFIL and LAF efforts in the area.

“While peacekeepers are well-prepared and supplied and can continue daily activities, we rely on these arteries for essential logistical movements, including troop rotations,” Ardiel said, urging all actors to avoid harm to civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure.

UNIFIL troops, she added, have facilitated the safe movement of around 100 civilians from dangerous areas.

UNIFIL peacekeepers remain in all their positions, Ardiel said, but, “due to the volatile and dangerous security situation, our movements are heavily restricted. We are no longer conducting patrols in the way we used to, so our monitoring is more limited than it was before.”

“Our patrols are now focused on areas around our positions, to ensure our peacekeepers are safe and discourage armed groups from using our positions as cover for their activities,” she added.

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(NEW YORK) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a bluntly worded, but ultimately conciliatory, speech Saturday to leaders of Western nations, saying the Trump administration does not want to dismantle its traditional alliances.

However, during his speech at the Munich Security Conference, he called on European countries to adopt the administration’s right-wing polices on mass migration and do more for their own defense.

“Our destiny is and always will be intertwined with you,” Rubio said to prolonged applause. “We do not seek to separate but to reinvigorate an old friendship.”

His speech’s message appeared to be a greatly moderated version of the one given by Vice President JD Vance last year, where he attacked European countries as oppressive.

Rubio repeated many of the same political criticisms that Vance made, telling European countries they and the United States previously had fallen victim to a liberal “dangerous delusion.”

He told them they must get control over mass migration, stop being ashamed of their colonial histories and give up on what he called a “climate cult.”

But he repeated the message that the U.S. wanted to reinvigorate the power of the West “together.”

“And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe,” Rubio said.

Rubio defended the administration as seeking to unapologetically reinvigorate the West, speaking nostalgically of “great western empires.”

“We do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker. We do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame,” he said. “We do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo.”

He said the U.S. has “no interest in being the polite caretaker of managed decline.”

The chairman of the conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, later thanked Rubio for his “message of reassurance.”

“I’m not sure you heard the sigh of relief in this hall,” Ischinger told Rubio on stage.

During an interview with Bloomberg TV directly after the speech, Rubio said he thought he gave the “same message” that Vance delivered at the conference last year.

“I think what the vice president said last year, very clearly, was that Europe had made a series of decisions internally that were threatening to the alliance and ultimately to themselves, not because we hate Europe or we don’t like Europeans, but because, what is it that we fight for? What is it that binds us together?” Rubio said in the interview.

“And ultimately, it’s the fact that we are both heirs to the same civilization, and it’s a great civilization, and it’s one we should be proud of,” Rubio added.

The secretary continued to moderate that message, however, saying his own remarks were meant to explain that, “when we come off as urgent or even critical about decisions that Europe has failed to make or made, it is because we care.”

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(LONDON) — Israel’s strike on the world’s largest natural gas field could severely impact Iran’s energy sector and several nearby Gulf states, energy experts told ABC News.

On Wednesday, Israel launched air strikes on South Pars, a natural gas field that covers about 3,700 square miles and serves as a vital source of fuel for Iran. It is located offshore in the Persian Gulf and contains about 1,800 trillion cubic feet of usable gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

South Pars accounts for about 70% of the gas Iran consumes, Ira Joseph, a senior research associate at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told ABC News.

David G. Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California at San Diego, agreed on the importance of South Pars to Iran.

“It’s the single most important natural gas field to Iran,” he told ABC News. “If you start tanking the Iranian economy, eventually, other parts of that infrastructure are going to start falling apart too.”

South Pars is part of a giant gas field that transverses to other nations — another section, the North Dome, is part of the same natural gas field but lies in Qatari territorial waters.

Combined, South Pars and the North Field account for about 10% of the gas traded in the world and about 20% of the world’s liquified natural gas (LNG) annual exports, Joseph noted.

Iran also exports gas into Turkey, Iraq and Central Asia — so those exports have been disrupted by the war, according to Joseph. Turkey acquires up to 15% of its gas from Iran, he added.

The U.S. is relatively insulated from natural gas price shocks due to the strikes on Iran’s gas fields because the U.S. is a big producer and doesn’t have enough export capacity to fully link itself to Asian and European markets, Catherine Wolfram, a professor of energy economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told ABC News.

Countries like Japan, Korea and the Europeans who are dependent on imports will take a big hit to their supply as a result of the attack on South Pars, she said.

But the impacts of the strikes on the South Pars field extend “far beyond” energy prices, Naho Mirumachi, a professor of environmental politics at King’s College in London, told ABC News.

The current volatility of gas production can have “serious” impacts on agriculture and the global production of food, especially since natural gas is vital for fertilizer production, she noted. Fertilizer shortages or higher prices of fertilizer will likely translate to increases in food costs, according to Mirumachi.

“Food production cannot wait for gas production to return to normal, so farmers and businesses could face declining crop yields,” she said.

There has never been an attack of this magnitude on South Pars field because of a historical understanding within the region to not disrupt or inhibit each other’s vital infrastructure, according to the University of California’s Victor.

“There had been a kind of norm that exists in many wars, which is, don’t attack each other’s vital infrastructure,” he said. “Both sides had an interest in not obliterating each other’s energy infrastructure and then causing this enormous harm in the global market.”

The strike on South Pars triggered an escalation of attacks on oil and gas facilities in the region.

Iran launched a series of retaliatory strikes against the vital energy infrastructure in nearby Gulf states. It issued evacuation orders for several energy assets in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, before hitting the world’s largest LNG terminal — an import and export facility — at Ras Laffan in Qatar.

“Targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security, as well as to the peoples of the region & its environment,” a spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.

In a social media post late Wednesday, President Donald Trump said neither the U.S. nor Qatar was aware Israel would attack the South Pars Gas Field, calling for Israel to not do so again unless Iran continues attacking Qatar’s LNG facilities.

“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” Trump said.

Iran warned that it would target energy facilities throughout the region.

The attacks on energy centers began on March 7, with Israeli air strikes on major Iranian oil storage facilities causing “black rain” to fall on the Tehran, Iran’s capital with nearly 10 million residents. The Israeli military said the facilities were struck because they were “used by the Military Forces of the Iranian Terror Regime in Tehran.”

On March 11, the International Energy Agency announced it would release 400 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserve — the largest-ever release of reserve oil in the group’s history — in response to the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the global oil supply passes through the waterway, which lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

The U.S. also executed a strike on Kharg Island on March 13. The small island is situated in the Persian Gulf, off the southwestern coast of Iran, and processes 90% of Iranian oil exports.

Every military target on Kharg Island was “obliterated,” Trump said in a social media post. But its oil infrastructure was left intact.

The conflict has sent energy prices soaring, with Brent crude — the international standard for oil — peaking at $119 per barrel on Thursday morning.

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