Israel Says Hezbollah Using UN Troops in Lebanon as Human Shields as UNIFIL Refuses to Leave Combat Zones

United Nations peacekeepers will stay in all positions in Lebanon despite Israeli warnings that Hezbollah is weaponizing their presence in the Iran-backed terrorist organization’s war against the Jewish state.

“The decision was made that UNIFIL [the UN Interim Force in Lebanon] would currently stay in all its positions in spite of the calls that were made by the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] to vacate the positions that are in the vicinity of the Blue Line,” UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said on Monday.

Lacroix’s announcement came after Italy, Britain, France, and Germany earlier in the day condemned what they described as Israeli attacks on the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, calling them violations of international humanitarian law and demanding an immediate halt.

In a joint statement, the nations emphasized the “essential stabilizing role” of UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah wields significant influence and has been fighting Israeli forces, and urged Israel to guarantee the peacekeepers’ safety.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forcefully rejected accusations that Israel deliberately attacked UNIFIL personnel as “completely false.”

“It’s exactly the opposite. Israel repeatedly asks UNIFIL to get out of harm’s way. It repeatedly asked them to temporarily leave the combat zone, which is right next to Israel’s border with Lebanon,” he said.

UNIFIL appeared to rebuff Netanyahu’s calls to evacuate with Lacroix’s latest statement. However, the Israeli premier hasn’t been the only one warning of how Hezbollah was using the UN presence in Lebanon to its advantage.

Lieutenant Colonel (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, a resident of northern Israel and the founder and director of Alma — a research center that focuses on security challenges relating to Israel’s northern border — said that Hezbollah was using UNIFIL troops as human shields.

“UNIFIL troops are deemed non-combatants like the rest of the Lebanese population, and not an enemy. Every commander in the IDF knows this,” Zehavi told The Algemeiner.

Israel’s one mistake, she said, was agreeing in the aftermath of the 2006 Second Lebanon War to the deployment of 10,000 UNIFIL troops in southern Lebanon.

“It’s outrageous that UNIFIL is not enabling us to do what it was supposed to do in the past 18 years,” she said. “They are risking their lives for nothing. I hope they’ll come to their senses and withdraw, as requested.”

Israel has asked that the peacekeepers retreat five kilometers, or 3.1, miles north of the border, to stay out of the line of fire.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon on Sunday echoed similar sentiments.

“Hezbollah terrorists are using UNIFIL outposts as hiding places and as places of ambushes. The UN’s insistence on keeping the UNIFIL soldiers in the line of fire is incomprehensible,” said Danon.

The Lebanese terrorist group has launched more than 10,000 rockets into Israel since Oct. 8 of last year, a day after Hamas’s attack in Israel’s south, including more than 1,000 UAVs, one of which killed four Israelis on Sunday and wounded 70 more.

“For 18 years, UNIFIL personnel ignored the Hezbollah bases along the border and did not report any UN Resolution 1701 violations, which states that only the Lebanese army is allowed to operate in the area,” Danon said.

A UNIFIL report released on Monday about IDF incursions in the area raised concerns for Zehavi, who questioned the group’s effectiveness even as a monitoring entity. The report notably omitted any mention of the munitions and tunnels uncovered by the IDF just meters from UNIFIL posts.

“In almost every home that is in open areas, and under every tree, the IDF finds munitions,” she said. “It is clear that UNIFIL knew what was happening.”

Zehavi said that much of the problems arose when examining UN Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 after the Second Lebanon War, which mandated a buffer zone free of armed groups and to prevent the area from being used for hostile activities. She questioned the division of responsibility in two seemingly contradictory articles of the resolution between UNIFIL and the Lebanese army in securing the area between Israel’s border and the Litani River.

“Who’s to ensure that this area is not used for all these purposes by a terrorist organization? Is it UNIFIL or the Lebanese army?” Zehavi asked, adding that at this point, “it doesn’t really matter.”

“Neither of them implemented the mandate, and from day one, Hezbollah deceived the whole world and continued rebuilding its terrorist activity in southern Lebanon,” she explained.

In the future, UNIFIL’s mandate should be limited to serving as mediator and capped at 1,000 personnel, Zehavi said. But she also called for another coalition to enter southern Lebanon, one that would be “willing to clash with Hezbollah.”

The key issue, Zehavi said, is that it’s impossible to fully implement UN Resolution 1701 as long as Hezbollah is not seen as an “illegitimate entity” within Lebanon. She argued that while Hezbollah operates both as a political party in Lebanon’s Parliament and government and as a massive social movement, the terrorist group essentially functions as a “state within a state,” with parallel civilian infrastructures that provide services to the population, thereby securing widespread support.

Despite the IDF’s successes in targeting Hezbollah’s munitions and rocket depots, Alma estimates that Hezbollah still retains around 50,000 mortars with ranges of up to 10 kilometers. Additionally, there are about 25,000 Grads and other mid-range rockets capable of reaching distances between 30 to 80 kilometers. For longer ranges of 80 to 200 kilometers, Hezbollah is believed to have around 2,000 rockets. However, Zehavi acknowledged that there are no current estimates for how many long-range missiles Hezbollah may still have in its arsenal.

Zehavi outlined four types of tunnels built by Hezbollah, each serving a specific function. The first type, border crossing tunnels, are meant to infiltrate Israel, with a recently discovered tunnel extending just a few dozen meters from Lebanon into the Israeli community of Zarit. Its opening shaft was discovered only dozens of meters away from a UNIFIL watchtower.

The second type is tactical tunnels, which link homes and strategic points in southern Lebanon. These tunnels were originally designed to facilitate Hezbollah’s invasion plans and defend against IDF incursions. Hezbollah’s plan to invade Israel — which included abductions — was “copy-pasted” by Hamas, she said.

In practice, since Hezbollah shelved plans for an invasion, the terrorist group has mainly used those tunnels to avoid direct combat, instead attacking from a distance with anti-tank missiles and mortars.

The third type, known as strategic tunnels, form a vast network stretching hundreds of kilometers, and are supported by Iran and North Korea. These tunnels are used to transport launchers and military personnel across Lebanon, from Beirut to the south and from the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Lastly, explosive tunnels are specifically designed to target IDF forces, with the intent of causing significant damage as Israeli units advance.

Beyond the fighting in Lebanon, Zehavi also described Iran’s recent massive missile attack on Israel as a declaration of war and called on Israel and its allies to attack Iran’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi held a secret meeting on Sunday night at the headquarters of the Military Intelligence Directorate near Tel Aviv to discuss the country’s planned retaliation against Iran, according to Ynet.

The last such secret meeting reportedly occurred right before the Israeli airstrike last month that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

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