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Lebanon Rejects Reform of UNIFIL Force on Border

Israel and Lebanon are still technically at war, and a United Nations force is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire | Mahmoud Zayyat/ AFP
Israel and Lebanon are still technically at war, and a United Nations force is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire | Mahmoud Zayyat/ AFP
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Lebanon Rejects Reform of UNIFIL Force on Border

Israel and Lebanon are still technically at war, and a United Nations force is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire | Mahmoud Zayyat/ AFP
Israel and Lebanon are still technically at war, and a United Nations force is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire | Mahmoud Zayyat/ AFP

Lebanon Tuesday rejected an Israeli call to reform a UN peacekeeping force patrolling the border between the two countries days before a UN Security Council vote to renew its mandate.

Lebanon and Israel are still technically at war, and the United Nations force, UNIFIL, is tasked with monitoring a cessation of hostilities between the two sides.

Lebanon's caretaker foreign minister Charbel Wahbe separately received the ambassadors of the council's five permanent members ahead of Friday's vote, Lebanon's National News Agency said.

He handed them a memorandum stressing that "Lebanon is attached to renewing (the mission of) UNIFIL, without modifying its mandate or its numbers", it added.

Hezbollah has also rejected any change to the nature of the force's mission.

Set up in 1978, UNIFIL was beefed up after a devastating month-long war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel accuses UNIFIL, whose latest mandate expires at the end of August, of not being active enough against Hezbollah.

It accuses the group of stockpiling weapons at the border, and is pushing for the UN force to be allowed to inspect private property.

UN chief Antonio Guterres in June called for an improved surveillance capacity for the force, including thermal-imaging cameras, hi-tech binoculars, and drones.

The US ambassador to the UN, Kelly Craft, in May called for the Security Council to empower UNIFIL or alter its staffing and resources to better fulfill its mandate.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah later the same month rejected any change to the nature of the peacekeeping mission, and lashed out at US pressure over the issue.

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UN Chief Calls the Death and Destruction in Gaza the Worst He’s Seen

A general view of damaged buildings in Bureij, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel, September 9, 2024. (Reuters)
A general view of damaged buildings in Bureij, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel, September 9, 2024. (Reuters)
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UN Chief Calls the Death and Destruction in Gaza the Worst He’s Seen

A general view of damaged buildings in Bureij, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel, September 9, 2024. (Reuters)
A general view of damaged buildings in Bureij, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel, September 9, 2024. (Reuters)

The UN chief said Monday that the United Nations has offered to monitor any ceasefire in Gaza and demanded an end to the worst death and destruction he has seen in his more than seven-year tenure.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with The Associated Press that it’s “unrealistic” to think the UN could play a role in Gaza’s future, either by administering the territory or providing a peacekeeping force, because Israel is unlikely to accept a UN role.

But he said “the UN will be available to support any ceasefire.” The United Nations has had a military monitoring mission in the Middle East, known as UNTSO, since 1948, and he said, “from our side, this was one of the hypotheses that we’ve put on the table.”

“Of course, we’ll be ready to do whatever the international community asked for us,” Guterres said. “The question is whether the parties would accept it, and in particular whether Israel would accept it.”

Israel’s military assault on Gaza, triggered by Hamas' attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, has stretched for 11 months, with recent ceasefire talks failing to reach a breakthrough and violence in the West Bank reaching new highs.

Stressing the urgency of a ceasefire now, Guterres said: “The level of suffering we are witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented in my mandate as secretary-general of the United Nations. I’ve never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in the last few months.”

The war has killed over 40,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have accused the UN of being anti-Israel and have been highly critical of UN humanitarian operations in Gaza.

Facing protests at home and increasing urgency from allies, Netanyahu has pushed back against pressure for a ceasefire deal and declared that “no one will preach to me.”

Looking beyond a ceasefire, Guterres stressed that a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only viable, “it’s the only solution.”

The United States and others support Palestinian statehood, but Netanyahu, who is leading the most conservative government in Israel’s history, has opposed calls for a two-state solution.

Guterres asked rhetorically whether the alternative is viable.

“It means that you have 5 million Palestinians living there without any rights in a state,” he said. “Is it possible? Can we accept an idea similar to what we had in South Africa in the past?"

He was referring to South Africa’s apartheid system from 1948 until the early 1990s when its minority white population marginalized and segregated people of color, especially Black people.

“I do not think you can have two peoples living together if they are not in a basis of equality, and if they are not in a basis of respect — mutual respect of their rights,” Guterres said. “So the two-state solution is, in my opinion, a must if we want to have peace in the Middle East.”