GENEVA, Oct 18 (AP) \u2014 Forces in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon are maintaining their positions despite warnings from Israeli Defense Forces to move away, a spokesman for the U.N. force said Friday.<\/p>\n
Andrea Tenenti of UNIFIL, the interim force in Lebanon, says a \u201cunanimous\u201d decision was taken by its 50 troop-contributing countries and the Security Council for it to hold its positions as part of its aim to monitor the conflict and work to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches needy civilians.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IDF has repeatedly targeted our positions, endangering the safety of our troops, in addition to Hezbollah launching rockets toward Israel from near our positions, which also puts our peacekeepers in danger,\u201d Tenenti told a U.N. news briefing in Geneva by video.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, UNIFIL said an Israeli tank \u201cdirectly\u201d fired on its headquarters in the town of Naqoura, knocking down an observation tower and injuring two Indonesian peacekeepers. Germany said Thursday that a Germany navy ship deployed as part of UNIFIL off Lebanon brought down a drone of unknown origin.<\/p>\n
Tenenti said deteriorating security in recent weeks in the fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces had forced UNIFIL \u2013 which has some 10,000 personnel \u2013 to suspend most, but not all, of its patrols near the \u201cBlue Line\u201d boundary along the Lebanon-Israel border.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing, at the moment, hundreds of trajectories, and sometimes more, crossing the Blue Line each day, forcing our peacekeepers to spend extended hours in shelters to ensure their safety, which remains our top priority,\u201d he said from Beirut.<\/p>\n
\nUNIFIL is staying put \u201cdespite IDF demands to move from positions close to the Blue Line,\u201d Tenenti said, adding that the peacekeepers had 29 positions \u201cvery close \u2014 up to five kilometers\u201d (about 3 miles) from the Blue Line.<\/p>\n
He said he was not aware of any cases in which UNIFIL troops had fired their weapons in self-defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cSelf-defense can be used, but we also have to be very pragmatic on when to use it and how to use it because we don\u2019t want to become part of the conflict,\u201d Tenenti said. \u201cIt\u2019s up to the commanders on the ground to decide when is the time to use self-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.N. migration agency has reported that nearly 800,000 people have been internally displaced within Lebanon, among whom three-in-five were moved from UNIFIL\u2019s areas of operation, he said.<\/p>\n
Israel has accused UNIFIL of being ineffective in halting Hezbollah\u2019s military activities and has alleged that the armed group has military infrastructure very close to peacekeeper bases.<\/p>\n
Tenenti noted \u201climitations\u201d of a Security Council resolution that underpins UNIFIL operations, such as prohibiting its forces from searching private property or homes or disarming Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
He said UNIFIL continues to report \u201csuspicious activities\u201d to the Security Council, including recent claims from Israeli forces that secret tunnels have been found in the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA, Oct 18 (AP) \u2014 Forces in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon are maintaining their positions despite warnings from Israeli Defense Forces to move away, a spokesman for the U.N. force said Friday. Andrea Tenenti of UNIFIL, the interim force in Lebanon, says a \u201cunanimous\u201d decision was taken by its 50 troop-contributing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-250661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}