Security Council statement urges that peacekeeper force must be respected but does not mention Israeli attacks by name.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has released a statement expressing support for UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon following a series of Israeli attacks on the UN peacekeeping force.
The UNSC statement says UNIFIL forces must be protected but does not name Israel specifically after several days of attacks on UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon.
“They [UNSC] urged all parties to respect the safety and security of UNIFIL personnel and premises. They recalled that UN peacekeepers and UN premises must never be the target of an attack,” the statement released on Friday reads. “They reiterated their support to UNIFIL, underscoring its role in supporting regional instability.”
The statement comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escalates his rhetoric against the UN peacekeepers, calling on them to “heed Israel’s request and to temporarily get out of harm’s way”.
The Israeli government has demanded that UNIFIL leave its positions in Lebanon, where Israel has stepped up ground operations and a campaign of heavy bombing that has killed hundreds of people and displaced a quarter of the country’s population.
“This meeting was about the Security Council coming together to give a statement with one voice of support to UNIFIL,” Al Jazeera correspondent Gabriel Elizondo reported from UN headquarters.
The UN peacekeepers say Israeli forces have attacked their positions several times over the last week, with two injured after Israel targeted their headquarters twice in a 48-hour period. Israeli tanks also smashed through the gates of a UNIFIL position over the weekend.
Those attacks have been widely condemned, including by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who said in a social media post on Sunday that attacks against UN peacekeepers were a violation of international law and “may constitute a war crime”.
The UN force has said that it would remain in place, despite pressure from Israel to leave its positions.
“We are staying. We are in the south of Lebanon under a Security Council mandate, so it’s important to keep an international presence and to keep the UN flag in the area,” a spokesman for the group said on Monday.
Elizondo reported that UNIFIL includes 10,000 peacekeepers from more than 50 countries.
He added that on Sunday, the UN observed 1,557 incidents across the Blue Line, a demarcation point between Lebanese and Israeli-held territory, with 93 percent of that fire coming from Israel into Lebanon.
“There are some countries with quite a few peacekeepers there. Some in the hundreds, a couple with over a thousand,” said Elizondo. “So they’re watching this very closely, because there are many countries that have some of their citizens as part of this deployment that are now at risk, and the risks are high.”
