UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon refuse to evacuate despite Israeli warnings

The UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, has said it will maintain its positions even as the Israeli military repeatedly demands that its troops evacuate the area, a UN spokesperson said on Friday.

The latest refusal comes a day after Israel killed Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar in a strike in Gaza, marking a major turning point in the war that began on 7 October 2023.

Andrea Tenenti of UNIFIL said a "unanimous" decision has been taken to hold the mission's positions by the 50 countries contributing to the 10,000 person force, as well as the UN Security Council.

More than a third of UNIFIL's troops are from EU countries.

Tenenti said deteriorating security in recent weeks in the fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces had forced UNIFIL to suspend most, but not all, of its patrols near the "Blue Line" boundary along the Lebanon-Israel border.

"The 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," Tenenti told a UN news briefing in Geneva by video.

Earlier this month, UNIFIL said an Israeli tank directly fired on its headquarters in the town of Naqoura, knocking down an observation tower and injuring two Indonesian peacekeepers. Germany said on Thursday that a German navy shipdeployed as part of UNIFIL off Lebanon brought down a drone of unknown origin.

A fractious history

Despite being initially set up as an interim force, UNIFIL has been a permanent fixture on the Lebanese-Israeli border since 1978, when it was established in response to Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon as part of "Operation Litani".

The force was tasked with enforcing peace on the contentious border, and maintaining a buffer zone between the two countries. It is also responsible for facilitating humanitarian access to the area and protecting its civilian protection.

Created four years before the founding of Hezbollah in 1982, UNIFIL has often been at odds with both Hezbollah and Israel and struggled to enforce its mandate, most notably during the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

As Israeli forces once again crossed into southern Lebanon in recent weeks, there has been a serious deterioration in relations between the force and the two warring parties.

Israeli officials have accused it of being ineffective in its mission to halt Hezbollah’s military activities in the area and claimed that Hezbollah has military complexes very close to UNIFIL infrastructure. 

The UN migration agency has reported that nearly 800,000people have been internally displaced within Lebanon, among whom three in five were moved from UNIFIL's areas of operation.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since they began on 23 September.

While Tenenti noted the "limitations" of a Security Council resolution that underpins UNIFIL operations, including prohibitions on searching private property or homes or disarming Hezbollah, he insisted the force continues to report "suspicious activities" to the Security Council, including relaying Israeli reports of tunnels in the area.

Despite recent tensions, Teneti added that he was not aware of any cases in which UNIFIL troops had fired their weapons in self-defence.

"Self-defence can be used, but we also have to be very pragmatic on when to use it and how to use it because we don't want to become part of the conflict," he said.