‘UNIFIL cannot be part of the solution’ after report Hezbollah bribed peacekeepers

In an Oct. 13 video message, Israeli Prime Minister directly called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to withdraw the contingent of 10,500 UNIFIL soldiers from 50 countries for their own safety.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Following a report that Hezbollah bribed UNIFIL peacekeepers to use their positions in southern Lebanon and took control of their security cameras along the border, an analyst said the monitors “cannot be part of the solution.”

According to a Monday report in the Israel Hayom daily, captured Hezbollah terrorists taken to Israel for questioning told interrogators that the Iran-backed terror group paid peacekeepers to use UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon.

The report added that the terrorists also admitted that Hezbollah took control of the force’s security cameras.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which is tasked with monitoring the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, did not respond to The Press Service of Israel’s requests for comment.

“It’s crucial that UNIFIL does a very serious internal review of what’s really going on there,” Sarit Zahavi, president and founder of the Alma Research Center, told TPS-IL.

“UNIFIL itself cannot be part of the solution now. This time, there must be an effective enforcement mechanism that won’t allow Hezbollah to recover from the damage the IDF inflicted on them,” she added, explaining that “we don’t find ourselves back in the same situation within a year.”

Said Zahavi, “For years, we’ve been raising the need to significantly reduce UNIFIL’s force. You don’t need ten thousand soldiers to provide humanitarian assistance. And you don’t need ten thousand soldiers getting in our way to do the job they didn’t do.”

Israeli officials have called on UNIFIL to evacuate southern Lebanon. In an Oct. 13 video message, Israeli Prime Minister directly called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to withdraw the contingent of 10,500 soldiers from 50 countries for their own safety, saying the monitors are “providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists.”

Guterres and Western diplomats rejected Netanyahu’s call. The UN Security Council unanimously renewed UNIFIL’s mandate in August.

UNIFIL was established in 1978 to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. The “Blue Line” demarcating the 120 km-long Israel-Lebanone border was created in 2000 by UN cartographers to verify Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, which the UN Security Council later certified as complete.

The border runs from Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean coast to Mount Dov, where it converges with Syria.

According to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the terror group is forbidden from operating in southern Lebanon south of the Litani River.

After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began firing rockets and launching drones at northern Israel communities daily.

More than 68,000 residents of northern Israel are displaced from their homes. Hezbollah leaders repeatedly said they would continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes.

Israeli officials have been critical of the peacekeepers for failing to stop Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of rockets at Israel since October 7.

“By and large, every third house in the Shi’ite villages of south Lebanon is used in some way by Hezbollah for military purposes, be it weapons storage, the entrance of a tunnel, or a launchpad for shooting rockets at Israel,” Zahavi told TPS-IL in August.