Netanyahu: UN refusal to evacuate UNIFIL forces makes them ‘Hostages of Hezbollah’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres to withdraw an international peacekeeping force from southern Lebanon on Sunday.
UN soldiers along the Israeli-Lebanese border watch Israeli soldiers destroying Hezbollah tunnels crossing into Israeli territory near Metula on Dec. 5, 2018. Photo by Kobi Richter/TPS
In a video addressing Guterres, Netanyahu said, “Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah.”
The video came on the heels of Israeli tank fire directly hitting a UNIFIL observation tower in Naqoura, injuring two Indonesian peacekeepers on Thursday. The Israel Defence Forces acknowledged operating in the area of the Lebanese coastal city, noting that the Iran-backed terror group has been active near UN positions.
UNIFIL’s Lebanese headquarters are in Naqoura, a coastal city three kilometres away from the Israeli border.
“Our heroic soldiers are destroying Hezbollah’s weapons, headquarters and terror tunnels. They are fighting mightily to return our residents in the north safely to their homes. We are not fighting the Lebanese people, we are fighting the terrorist branch of Iran – Hezbollah – which has conquered Lebanon,” Netanyahu said.
“I would like to appeal directly to the UN Secretary General: it is time for you to remove UNIFIL from Hezbollah’s strongholds and from the fighting areas. The IDF has repeatedly asked for this, and has been met with repeated refusals, all aimed at providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists,” said Netanyahu.
“Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers. We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone. Mr. Secretary General, get the UNIFIL forces out of harm’s way. It should be done right now, immediately.”
UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, was established in 1978 to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. The “Blue Line” demarcating the 120 km-long Israeli-Lebanese border was created in 2000 by UN cartographers to verify Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, which the UN Security Council later certified as complete. The border runs from Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean coast to Mount Dov, where the Israeli-Lebanese border converges with Syria.
According to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the terror group is forbidden from operating in southern Lebanon south of the Litani River.
After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing rockets and launching drones at northern Israel communities daily. According to figures released by the government on Sept. 29, more than 68,000 residents of northern Israel are displaced from their homes. Hezbollah leaders have repeatedly said they would continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes.
Israeli officials have been critical of the peacekeepers for failing to stop Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of rockets at Israel since October 7.
Sarit Zahavi, president and founder of the Alma Research Center, told The Press Service of Israel in August that Hezbollah doctrine makes extensive use of civilian homes, where many more weapons, including ballistic missiles, are kept.
“Hezbollah stores their weapons everywhere, both between villages and within the villages themselves,” she said.
“By and large, every third house in the Shi’ite villages of south Lebanon is used in some way by Hezbollah for military purposes, be it weapons storage, the entrance of a tunnel, or a launchpad for shooting rockets at Israel,” she explained.
UNIFIL is currently manned by 10,500 monitors from 50 countries.
