The international force is responsible for documenting military movements and violations of the blue line between the two countries. But she had to stop her patrols for safety.
Peacekeepers caught in the war. Two peacekeepers were injured after an Israeli armored vehicle fired at an observation tower at the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in Naqoura, southern Lebanon, announced the latter in a press release, Thursday October 10.
The victims were not seriously injured, but they had to be hospitalized. They are not part of the French soldiers participating in this international force, but of the Indonesian contingent, the largest, franceinfo learned from a source close to the matter. Before shooting, the Israeli soldiers had “ordered UN forces present in the area to remain in protected spaces”assured the Israeli army in the evening.
“Why didn’t UNIFIL retaliate?”asks the military historian Michel Goya, contacted by franceinfo, emphasizing “that it was a position of pure self-defense.” The press release in the form of “strong protest” (“strong protest”) published Thursday once again illustrates the powerlessness of United Nations peace missions, continues the former colonel. UNIFIL is regularly singled out for its inability to prevent territorial violations between southern Lebanon and Israel, or to respond to violence. “UN missions are diplomatic missions that use soldiers”euphemizes Michel Goya, who himself participated in such operations in Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) in the 1990s.
UNIFIL, by its own admission, was already going through the period “the most difficult” of its mission since 2006. The 10,400 soldiers who make it up, from around fifty countries, have been forced to stop their patrols between Israel and Lebanon since the end of September, while the Hebrew state launched land incursions to track down Hezbollah fighters in border villages. UN soldiers are forced to remain in their positions for long days punctuated by gunfire, which limits the scope of their mission.
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UNIFIL’s room for maneuver is reduced. “We currently have 600 men in Lebanon engaged in UNIFIL who are risking their lives”recalled on franceinfo Jean-Louis Thiériot, Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Armed Forces and Veterans. The threat they face is direct. When the belligerents fire, “they are of course very close”and some explosions have already sounded “a few meters” of the UNIFIL bases, Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the international force, told franceinfo, even before Thursday’s shots.
While its troops are confined, UNIFIL still retains the capacity to provide information on military movements. Occasionally, it has managed to transport water to several villages, but it has not yet succeeded in obtaining the opening of humanitarian corridors.
“Our monitoring and action capabilities are very limited. But we still fly the UN flag along the blue line.”
Andrea Tenenti, UNIFIL spokespersonat franceinfo
This demarcation line has been controlled by the international force since its establishment in 2000, when the Israeli army withdrew from southern Lebanon. Even today, there is no official or recognized border between the two countries. The blue line, 120 km long, is marked by painted barrels, when a territorial consensus has been found between the two parties. In the other cases – half of the area – no visual markers have been installed. Israel has sometimes built, in parallel, a “technical barrier” or portions of wall a few meters away.
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The international force, whose mandate must be renewed each year by the UN Security Council, has the mission of ensuring the application of Resolution 1701 of the United Nations Security Council. In short, it is about monitor the cessation of hostilities and ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations. “By showing up, we have a deterrent role. The objective is that they [les membres du Hezbollah] renounce shooting, and that on the other hand, Israel also renounces”explained a soldier met in January by franceinfo. “Our mission is not to respond” to the shootings, added more recently a lieutenant met by France Télévisions.
“The mission of UNIFIL is to observe and report information to New York [au siège de l’ONU].”
A UNIFIL lieutenantat France Télévisions
Officially, this force must also ensure the withdrawal of non-state armed forces in the governorate of South Lebanon, between the blue line and the Litani River. But “Hezbollah is more than a militia, it is also a political group and a socio-economic force”, firmly anchored in the region, notes Daniel Meier, professor at Sciences Po Grenoble. “The Lebanese army returned after the 2006 war, but that’s not why it regained control.”
The Islamist movement still has relays in the majority of villages in the South. The lives of peacekeepers are in fact suspended in complex negotiations involving different actors, governmental or not. “In the early 2010s, when it found weapons caches, UNIFIL contacted the Lebanese army, which asked Hezbollah to evacuate them”recalls Daniel Meier. In late 2022, an Irish peacekeeper was killed in southern Lebanon, when the UNIFIL vehicle took an unusual route to Beirut and was targeted by gunfire. A man named Mohammad Ayyad, close to Hezbollah and the main suspect in the attack, was handed over to the authorities by the Islamist movement itself.
The current situation is all the more delicate as most of the Lebanese army troops have left their positions for a week, depriving UNIFIL of a contact on the ground. Despite everything, “General Aroldo Lazaro, head of the mission, continues to speak daily with both parties”insists spokesperson Andrea Tenenti. But the head of the mission comes up against the determination of Israel, which even demanded the departure of certain peacekeepers before launching its land incursions. UNIFIL consulted troop-contributing countries, including France, before making the decision to keep its troops on the ground.
This did not dampen the ardor of the Jewish state. Israeli soldiers carried out a new operation on Sunday a few hundred meters from the UN-652 base, occupied by an Irish contingent. His position was compromised, exposing the peacekeepers to the fighting. Israeli soldiers “left the scene [mardi] and were no longer present until [mercredi] Morningcomments Andrea Tenenti. They were there a few hours ago, but I don’t know if they are still there now, because the situation is very fluid and changes all the time.”
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“We have ongoing contacts with UNIFIL to make sure they don’t get caught in the exchange of fire between Hezbollah and us.”declared for his part a spokesperson for the Israeli army, Nadav Shoshani. Hezbollah said Tuesday that it had pushed Israeli soldiers behind the border who had “infiltrators” near a Blue Helmet position in Labboune, a border village.
“Constant Israeli bombardments have become an integral part of daily life in Lebanon”deplored the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the commander of UNIFIL, Aroldo Lazaro, and “Hezbollah launches barrage of rockets and missiles at Israel”. With the land operation underway, UNIFIL has few more levers.
“UNIFIL has failed in its mission” to enforce resolution 1701, commented David Mencer, spokesperson for the Israeli government, referring to the “more than 10,000 rockets, drones and missiles received from Hezbollah last year”. In the eyes of Israel, the very presence of the Islamist movement in southern Lebanon marks the failure of the international force: “We were forced to push Hezbollah further north, away from our border.” Critics of the mission regularly point out its cost, around half a billion dollars each year.
“Israel has systematically sought to delegitimize UNIFIL by asserting that it served no other purpose than to ratify the well-established presence of Hezbollah”underlines Daniel Meier. Certainly, UNIFIL’s mandate prohibits its peacekeepers from entering private property, confiscating weapons or arresting suspected members of the Lebanese Islamist movement. But this international presence, insists the researcher, guarantees the absence of systematic violations in one direction or the other. “Until 2007, for example, Hezbollah regularly carried out border kidnapping operations in Israel.”
“UNIFIL can undoubtedly be improved, but it still has a calming function because it embodies a massive international presence.”
Daniel Meier, professor at Sciences Po Grenobleat franceinfo
UNIFIL may use force in rare circumstances: in self-defense, to protect UN personnel and facilities, or to assist civilians under imminent threat of physical violence. This phase of open conflict revives debates on its role. “UN missions have no operational military capacity and never carry out offensive operationscomments Michel Goya. UNIFIL, an interim force, never stopped Israelis from crossing the border in 1982, nor Hezbollah from fighting or carrying out a raid in 2006. These are extremely frustrating missions for those involved.”
Should we therefore abandon this buffer zone between the two States? “I would still like public opinion to think about what could happen if we were not there”answers Andrea Tanenti when asked about the usefulness of his mission. “What if there were no more peacekeepers, no more international community, no more monitoring of violations, no one to report to the Security Council? That would be dramatic.”