The United Nations said on Sunday Israeli tanks had burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, the latest accusation of Israeli violations and attacks that have been denounced by Israel’s own allies.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the United Nations to evacuate the troops of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force from combat areas in Lebanon. Hours later, the force reported what it described as additional Israeli violations, including two Israeli Merkava tanks destroying the main gate of a base and forcibly entering before dawn that morning.

Soon after the tanks left, shells exploded 100 metres away, releasing smoke which blew across the base and sickened U.N. personnel, causing 15 to require treatment despite wearing gas masks, it said. It did not say who fired the shells or what sort of toxic substance it suspected.

It also accused Israel’s IDF military of halting a logistics convoy. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the statement.

  • photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    761·
    22 days ago

    In its version of events, the Israeli military said militants of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah had fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli troops, wounding 25 of them. The attack was very close to a UNIFIL post and a tank helping evacuate the casualties under fire then backed into the UNIFIL post, it said. “It is not storming a base. It is not trying to enter a base. It was a tank under heavy fire, mass casualty event, backing up to get out of harm’s way,” the military’s international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told reporters. In a statement, the military said it used a smoke screen to provide cover for the evacuation of the wounded soldiers but its actions posed no danger to the U.N. peacekeeping force.

    OK, sounds plausible enough…

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “The time has come for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones.” "The IDF has requested this repeatedly and has met with repeated refusal, which has the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields

    You want to have your cake and eat it too. Why do you want the peacekeepers out? Why not coordinate with them?

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
      875·
      22 days ago

      Why do you want the peacekeepers out? Why not coordinate with them?

      Because the Peacekeepers aren’t there to fight a war, that’s not their role. The real question is, what are they still there for? There is no real answer from the UN about this. Their mission was to try to disarm Hezbollah, which they clearly they didn’t accomplish. Now Hezbollah is using the weapons the UN was supposed to remove (but didn’t) to fight the IDF. And the UN is apparently just going to leave Peacekeepers stranded in the middle of a warzone because they’re still pretending there isn’t a war happening? Or are they hoping for a conflict to occur between the Peacekeeping force and the IDF? Like is the UN now trying to escalate the conflict? Really, what are they trying to accomplish?

      Sure, never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and the UN is a very incompetent organization. But this is getting so it goes beyond being able to be explained by incompetence.

    • DarthJon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      483·
      22 days ago

      They want them out because they don’t want them caught in the crossfire. They serve no purpose there, so might as well GTFO before they get killed.

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
          531·
          22 days ago

          Their job is to record war crimes. Israel doesn’t like when people record their war crimes. Thats why they’ve murdered hundreds (thousands?) of journalists

            • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
              27·
              22 days ago

              Well there’s some. France has stopped sending weapons. Ireland has issued sanctions. The South Africans have fucking brought them to court for genocide. Nicaragua just cut diplomatic ties.

              There’s been varying degrees of consequences from maybe a quarter of the world’s countries.

              But we need more, of course. Especially from the US.

      • kaffiene@lemmy.worldEnglish
        36·
        22 days ago

        They don’t want to be observed. Just as with Gaza where they won’t let foriegn journalists in

      • jpreston2005@lemmy.worldEnglish
        15·
        22 days ago

        The UN Peace Keeping Force is there for a number of things, but mainly to Keep the Peace.

        They help citizens in a crisis, they monitor for illegal activity (including war crimes), and help with aid distribution. Their efforts are being hindered by the idf:

        UNIFIL has said previous Israeli attacks on a watchtower, cameras, communications equipment and lighting had limited its monitoring abilities. U.N. sources say they fear any violations of international law in the conflict will be impossible to monitor.