The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was supposed to keep Hezbollah forces out of southern Lebanon in order to remove them as a threat to Israel. But whenever Hezbollah’s militia made an appearance near the border with Israel, or stored rockets there, UNIFil soldiers responded by slinking away from their outposts to their barracks. Israel can depend only on itself for its security.
U.N. PEACEKEEPERS FEAR HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS
By Aviel Schneider
Israel Today
May 14, 2013
The peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are increasingly coming into hostile and even violent contact with the Hezbollah terrorist militia near the Lebanon-Israel border. The Lebanese troops who had taken control of the border after the last war in 2006 have largely been redeployed as a result of mounting tension on the country's eastern border due to the ongoing Syrian civil war.
Taking advantage of this power vacuum, Hezbollah has entered the area in force, and is daily confronting the blue helmets of UNIFIL. Hezbollah blocks UNIFIL patrols along the border and has even threatened to abduct members of the international peacekeeping force, similar to what Syrian rebel groups did earlier this month.
UNIFIL officers have reportedly told their Israeli counterparts that they are fed up with the situation. The moment it becomes clear the the lives of the peacekeepers are in peril, UNIFIL will withdraw from the region, driving the final nail in the coffin of UN Resolution 1701 that ended the Second Lebanon War.
As we have noted before, the UN is only "effective" when everything is quiet. With both UNIFIL and the UN peacekeepers on the Israel-Syria border threatening to flee the region, it is once more clear that Israel cannot commit its security into the hands of others.
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