KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Authorities in eastern Tennessee continued Friday to investigate a container suspected of holding large amounts of dynamite, warning residents that evacuations will likely remain in place throughout the night.
“Until we know more, we implore people to stay out of this area,” Scott Erland, spokesperson for the Knoxville Police Department, told reporters Friday. “We’re still dealing with a volatile situation.”
Residents within 3,000 feet (914 meters) of CMC Recycling — which provides metal recycling services for both residents and industrial clients — have been encouraged to evacuate since Thursday after an employee discovered a 5x5 foot steel box with suspected dynamite.
Erland said the employee was using a torch to open the box and that caused the contents of the box to start smoking, prompting the employee to call authorities. However, it was still unclear what exactly is in the container.
"Until we believe otherwise, we’re going to treat it like it’s going to explode,” he said.
According to police, there’s no evidence of foul play and no evidence that the box was left on site “maliciously.” It's unknown how long the box had been left at CMC Recycling, but it's believed to have been there for at least several days, Erland said.
Knoxville's police department has consulted with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who recommended the immediate area be evacuated.
Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon said more than 30 people spent Thursday night in the emergency shelter set up for residents who evacuated. The shelter will remain in place as the investigation continues.
Overall, more than 1,000 people have voluntarily evacuated the area, Erland said.
Knoxville Police and Knoxville Fire's Command center respond to the discovery of suspicious container at CMC Recycling in Knoxville. Tenn., Thursday, Oct. 10, ,2024. (Saul Young/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP)
Knoxville Police Chief Paul Noel on site in response to the discovery of suspicious container at CMC Recycling in Knoxville. Tenn., Thursday, Oct. 10, ,2024. (Saul Young/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP)
The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said new explosions hit its headquarters Friday, injuring two peacekeepers, a day after Israeli forces targeted the same position and struck central Beirut.
Earlier Friday, cross-border fire from Lebanon killed a young man from Thailand who was working on a farm in the north of Israel.
At least 22 people were killed and 117 wounded in Israeli airstrikes that hit two areas in central Beirut on Thursday night, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The air raid was the deadliest attack on central Beirut in over a year of war, hitting two residential buildings in neighborhoods that have swelled with displaced people fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere in the country.
The strikes came as Israel escalates its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border, after a year of exchanges of fire between the two rivals.
Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, which began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
A year ago, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Here is the latest:
Two Lebanese soldiers were killed and three others wounded in an Israeli airstrike that hit a building near a Lebanese Army checkpoint in Kafra, Bint Jbeil province, the Lebanese Army said Friday.
Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border while the Lebanese army has largely stood on the sidelines.
As Israeli troops made their first forays across the border and Hezbollah responded with rocket fire, Lebanese soldiers withdrew from observation posts along the frontier and repositioned about 5 km back.
On Oct. 3, a Lebanese soldier was killed and another injured in an Israeli strike in Taybeh during rescue operations. On Sept. 30, another Lebanese soldier was killed by an Israeli drone targeting a Lebanese Army checkpoint in Wazzani.
The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon says new explosions hit its headquarters on Friday morning, injuring two peacekeepers, a day after Israeli forces struck the same position.
The force, known as UNIFIL, said the explosions went off close to an observation tower at its headquarters in the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura. One of the injured peacekeepers was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Tyre, while the other was treated at the site. It did not specify the cause of the blasts.
It also said an Israeli army bulldozer hit the perimeter of another of its positions in southern Lebanon while Israeli tanks moved nearby. Additional peacekeepers were sent to reinforce the position, it said.
Human Rights Watch says the Israeli military's deliberate and repeated attacks on the U.N. peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon are unlawful and amount to war crimes.
The New York-based rights group issued a statement amid widespread condemnation of the attack by Israeli forces on the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, which wounded two peacekeepers a day earlier.
“Any targeting of UN peacekeepers by Israeli forces violates the laws of war and dangerously interferes with UNIFIL’s civilian protection and aid work,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“With over 2,000 people killed and over a million people displaced in Lebanon since mid-September, it is crucial for UNIFIL to be allowed to fulfil its civilian protection and humanitarian functions,” Fakih said.
GENEVA – The U.N. is getting ready for the start a second round of polio vaccinations for children in Gaza next week, and appealed for the implementation of a “humanitarian pause” to enable the campaign.
A first round of vaccinations was concluded last month after the detection of Gaza’s first polio case in 25 years. The new round is due to start on Monday and aims to give a second dose to some 591,700 children.
Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s representative in the Palestinian territories, said Friday that a pause in fighting will once again be a “prerequisite” for a successful second round.
He said that “we renew our request for all parties of the conflict to implement this necessary humanitarian pause” in Gaza. He added that this is “particularly critical as new evacuation orders in the north of Gaza are threatening access to hospitals and protection of health facilities and health and community workers.”
VIENTIANE, Laos — Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday gave support to Israel’s escalated campaign against Hezbollah, saying it had “clear and legitimate” reasons, but said the U.S. is trying to find a diplomatic solution to the war.
“When the horror of Oct. 7 happened, the next day Hezbollah joined in, trying to create another front in the process,” he told a news conference after attending an annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Laos.
He said Israel has a “clear and very legitimate interest” in trying to allow the return of its citizens who were evacuated from their homes in northern Israel because of Hezbollah fire. “The people of Lebanon want the same thing,” he said, referring to Lebanese who fled homes near the border to escape Israeli bombardment.
“We believe that the best way to get there is through a diplomatic understanding, one that we’ve been working on for some time and one that we’re extremely focused on right now,” he said.
Blinken said it was also important that civilians are protected amid fighting in Lebanon and Gaza, adding that not enough humanitarian aid is reaching north Gaza and other areas.
JERUSALEM — Cross-border fire from Lebanon killed a young worker from Thailand in the north of Israel early Friday, Israel’s military said.
Israel's military said that the 27-year-old was killed by a rocket that hit farmland. The Thai Embassy in Israel and Israel's paramedic service said he was killed by an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon. The two accounts could not immediately be reconciled.
The man was a farmworker on Kibbutz Yir'on, a communal farm in the north, the embassy said in a Facebook post Friday. The attack also “severely traumatized” another worker.
The embassy was working on getting in touch with the man’s family, a spokesperson for Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at a news conference in Bangkok.
The Israeli military said two other civilians were injured in the same incident Friday. Hezbollah claimed one missile attack on a military position in the north Friday morning.
Hezbollah and other militants in Lebanon have been exchanging fire with Israel for the past year. Israel recently escalated bombardment in Lebanon and invaded a strip inside the Lebanese border, vowing to push out Hezbollah fighters.
Friday’s strike was one of the first civilian deaths in Israel since the escalation began in late September. Two Israelis were killed by rocket debris Wednesday. On the Lebanese side, Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,400 people in the past three weeks, including fighters, civilians and medical personnel.
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey condemned Israel’s attack on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, characterizing it as “a manifestation of its perception that its crimes go unpunished.”
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said in a statement Thursday that its headquarters and positions “have been repeatedly hit” by Israeli forces. Two UNIFIL troops were wounded in the attacks.
The Israeli military acknowledged opening fire at a U.N. base in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it had ordered the peacekeepers to “remain in protected spaces.”
“The international community is obliged to ensure that Israel abides by international law,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late Thursday. “We will continue to support all initiatives within the framework of international law to promote peace in the region.
Turkey contributes to UNIFIL Maritime Task Force with a corvette and five personnel, the ministry said.
A man checks his destroyed house at the site of Thursday's Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese women pass destroyed buildings at the site of Thursday's Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese women pass the destroyed buildings hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Rescue workers use an excavator to clear the rubble of destroyed buildings as they search for victims at the site of Thursday's Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Rescue workers clear the rubble of destroyed buildings as they search for victims at the site of Thursday's Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Rescue workers stand in front of destroyed buildings, as they prepare to start search for victims at the site of Thursday's Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A woman passes in front of destroyed cars at the site of Thursday's Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A man uses his mobile phone as flames and smoke rise at the scene of buildings hit by an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
