UN Security Council says UNIFIL must be protected after Israeli attacks

Following a number of Israeli attacks on the UN peacekeeping force, the UNSC has expressed support for UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon.

The 15-member council urged “all parties to respect the safety and security of UNIFIL personnel and premises” in a statement released on Monday that did not specifically mention Israel.

They “remembered that UN peacekeepers and UN facilities never should be the target of an attack,” the statement reads. &nbsp, “They reiterated their support to UNIFIL, underscoring its role in supporting regional instability”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is speaking out against the UN peacekeepers, urging them to “heed Israel’s request and to temporarily get out of harm’s way.”

UNIFIL has been ordered by the Israeli government to leave its positions in Lebanon, where Israel has intensified ground operations and a heavy bombing campaign that has resulted in the displacement of a quarter of the country’s population.

Gabriel Elizondo, a member of the UN Security Council, reported from the UN’s New York headquarters, “This meeting was about the Security Council coming together to make a statement and voice one support for UNIFIL.”

Israeli forces have attacked their positions several times over the past week, according to the UN peacekeepers, with two injured people who were injured when Israel attacked UNIFIL headquarters twice in 48 hours.

Over the weekend, Israeli tanks also smashed through a UNIFIL location.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who wrote in a social media post on Sunday that attacks against UN peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime,” has received widespread condemnation for those atrocities.

Despite Israeli pressure to leave its positions, the UN force has declared that it will continue to exist.

“We are staying. It’s crucial to maintain an international presence and the UN flag in the area because we are in the south of Lebanon under a Security Council mandate, according to a group spokesman on Monday.

UNIFIL consists of some 10, 000 peacekeepers from more than 50 countries, including Indonesia, India and Ireland.

On Sunday, the UN said it had 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 a lot of peacekeepers there,” he said. Some in the hundreds, a couple with over a thousand”, Al Jazeera’s Elizondo said of UNIFIL.