The incident took place after Israel ordered UNIFIL troops to leave southern Lebanon
Two Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tanks destroyed the main gate of a UN peacekeeping base and illegally entered the facility on Sunday, the organization’s mission in Lebanon has claimed. Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that UN troops would be in danger if they remained in Lebanon.
The incident took place at a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) base in Ramyah, near the Israel-Lebanon border, on Sunday morning, UNIFIL said in a statement.
”At around 4:30 a.m., while peacekeepers were in shelters, two IDF Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position,” the statement read. “They requested multiple times that the base turn out its lights. The tanks left about 45 minutes later after UNIFIL protested through our liaison mechanism, saying that IDF presence was putting peacekeepers in danger.”
After the tanks left, several rounds were fired 100 meters north of the base. The shells emitted irritating smoke, which drifted into the camp and caused 15 peacekeepers to suffer “skin irritation and gastrointestinal reactions,” despite their wearing of protective masks, UNIFIL said.
In a statement released on Sunday night, the IDF said that the tanks accidentally backed into the base while evacuating two wounded Israeli soldiers, and that a smokescreen was then fired to aid their escape.
UNIFIL was formed in 1978 to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli forces to below the so-called ‘blue line’, which separates Lebanon from Israel and the occupied Golan Heights. Headquartered in the town of Naqoura, UNIFIL is currently composed of around 10,000 troops from around 50 countries, who are tasked with ensuring that neither Israel nor Hezbollah maintain a military presence between the blue line and the Litani River.
Israel maintains that UNIFIL has done nothing to prevent Hezbollah entrenching itself in this region, while preventing its own forces from responding to the threat.
IDF troops entered southern Lebanon late last month, in a dramatic escalation of Israel’s war against the Lebanese paramilitary group. In the weeks since, UNIFIL has accused the IDF of repeatedly firing on its bases and outposts. Five peacekeepers have been wounded, four of them by Israeli fire, according to recent statements from the UN mission.
Following Sunday’s incident at Ramyah, UNIFIL reminded Israel that “breaching and entering a UN position is a further flagrant violation of international law and Security Council resolution 1701.” This resolution, which ended the 2006 Lebanon War, stipulates that only UNIFIL troops and the regular Lebanese military are allowed to operate between the blue line and the Litani River.
In a video message posted to social media on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to withdraw UNIFIL troops from southern Lebanon, accusing them of “providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists.” Netanyahu added that the UN troops’ lives would be “endangered” if they refuse to evacuate.
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