- Israeli wants a demilitarized zone under its exclusive control without the UN or any other international presence, warns ex-UNIFIL officer Ray Murphy

- Israel sees UNIFIL as ‘basically useless’ and wants to make the UN force act like a border guard, says Lebanese security analyst Ali Rizk

- ‘The legal position is clear. Israel cannot require UN peacekeepers to leave Lebanon,’ says legal expert Alexander Gilder

- If UNIFIL were to break down, the immediate alternative would be ‘an open-ended Israeli presence in southern Lebanon,’ warns International Crisis Group’s Richard Gowan

ISTANBUL

Israel’s attacks on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon are deliberate and by design, analysts agree, with the only point of divergence in views being the end objective.

Is this Israel trying to push out the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and occupy territory in southern Lebanon, or is this Israel coercing the UN force into doing its bidding?

Ray Murphy, an Irish former UNIFIL infantry officer, believes Israel is gunning for reoccupation and “free rein” to wreak Gaza-like destruction in Lebanon.

Since last October, Israeli attacks have killed and wounded more than 13,000 people in Lebanon, according to official Lebanese figures. It has ramped up airstrikes against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since late last month, killing over 1,500 people, injuring more than 4,500 others, and displacing at least 1.34 million people.

“I suspect ... the Israeli government is considering taking control of, setting up a security zone, a demilitarized zone that will be within … exclusive control of Israel without UN or any other international presence,” Murphy, who served in UNIFIL in the 1980s, told Anadolu.

The Israeli attacks on the peacekeepers are deliberate, he asserted.

“They want to compel the UN forces to withdraw. They don’t want to have international peacekeepers, international observers or anybody that can report the activities of the Israeli Defense Forces,” he said.

“I believe they want to have free rein to do in south Lebanon what they have done and what they continue to do in Gaza.”

Ali Rizk, a Lebanese security analyst, sees the current situation as an Israeli attempt to make UNIFIL act like a border guard and take some concrete action against Hezbollah.

Comprising 10,000 peacekeepers from 50 countries, UNIFIL was established by the UN Security Council in 1978 to ensure Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon and assist the Lebanese government in restoring control.

After the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, its mandate was expanded to include additional tasks such as “monitoring the cessation of hostilities,” and “accompanying and supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) as they deploy throughout the south of Lebanon.”

Under its current mandate, UNIFIL “can’t use any force” and the Israelis want to change that, said Rizk.

“They think that UNIFIL, with its current mandate, is basically useless. They want UNIFIL to do a duty which it’s not supposed to do according to the mandate,” he said.

“It’s been a longstanding demand of the Israelis to have a UN force … that can use force against Hezbollah.”

The aggression against UN peacekeepers is no surprise to Rizk, who sees it as part of “Israel’s broader hostility towards the UN as an organization.”

What it does do, though, is put pressure on the US because a lot of the countries with troops in UNIFIL are American allies, such as France, Italy and Spain, he said.

“So, by attacking a force which includes US allies, this puts these allies in a corner, and that puts the Biden administration in a difficult situation,” he explained.

On the possibility of Israel trying to push out UNIFIL, he said the aim there could be to set conditions for their eventual return, which could include “enforcing a mechanism enabling UNIFIL to use force.”

Rizk, however, does not believe UNIFIL “is in the process of meeting or accepting the Israeli demands.”

“They made it clear that they’re going to stay in their area of operations, so I think that the Israelis aren’t going to be successful.”

Attack on international law

On the legal front, University of Reading’s Alexander Gilder warns that Israel would be committing a “grave violation of international humanitarian law” if it is found to have deliberately targeted UN peacekeepers.

By restricting the movement of UN peacekeepers, Israel is also in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, he said.

The resolution, adopted unanimously in 2006, was aimed primarily at ending hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including a call for a permanent cease-fire to be based on the creation of a buffer zone.

“Under their legal mandate, UN peacekeepers in Lebanon have freedom of movement to undertake independent patrols and can use force in self-defense. Israel must not target UN peacekeepers, violate the perimeters of UN positions or restrict their movements,” Gilder, an associate professor of international law and security, told Anadolu.

“The legal position is clear. Israel cannot require UN peacekeepers to leave Lebanon. The UN forces can remain in position as long as Lebanon continues to consent to their presence and the UN Security Council wishes for them to remain deployed.”

Gilder pointed out that while UN peacekeepers have been targeted by armed actors in numerous conflicts, it is extremely rare for a state to do so.

“We usually see peacekeepers being harmed by armed groups and terrorist organizations, not by sophisticated state militaries that ought to know and respect their international obligations,” he said.

Richard Gowan, UN expert for the International Crisis Group, said Israel views UN bases and personnel in southern Lebanon as an impediment to its own freedom of action.

He pointed out that Israel previously attacked UN forces in July 2006, killing four peacekeepers.

“They faced a lot of diplomatic blowback as a result, especially from Beijing as one of the victims was Chinese. The IDF wants to see UNIFIL pull back to avoid any UN fatalities,” he said.

Can the international community stop Israel?

Regarding possible steps to deter Israel, Gowan said the Security Council could “impose penalties, including sanctions, on Israel for attacks on UNIFIL in theory, but the US will block this in practice.”

A possible consequence of Israel’s aggression, he said, could be “European UNIFIL contributors signaling their anger through diplomatic means, like recalling ambassadors.”

“I think a lot of the UNIFIL force contributors hope that keeping their troops in place will help deter Israel from getting into an all-out war in Lebanon. But if the UN does start incurring fatalities, some UNIFIL contributors may waver and consider pulling their personnel out. If the force starts to evacuate, it will be difficult to redeploy it soon,” said Gowan.

The reality is that if UNIFIL were to break down, he warned, the immediate alternative would be “an open-ended Israeli presence in southern Lebanon.”

“I can imagine Israel calling for the deployment of a non-UN-led operation with a more robust mandate to tackle Hezbollah in future, which is what the Israelis initially demanded in 2006,” he said.

“But it is hard to see NATO nations or regional powers deploying large-scale military forces to wage a long-term counter-insurgency campaign.”

Murphy, the former UNIFIL officer, explained that the only condition under which the peacekeepers may return fire is “as a last resort in self-defense or defense of the mandate.”

However, as soon as “they engage in combat operations, then like any civilian, they lose their protected status and they become a party to the conflict and may legitimately be targeted,” he explained.

“So, in those circumstances, is it in the interests of UNIFIL to be resorting to the use of force except as a last resort in self-defense?”

Murphy, now a professor at the University of Galway’s Irish Center for Human Rights, believes the Security Council, both permanent and non-permanent members, have to act together.

“It’s essential that UN Security Council act unanimously in support of UNIFIL and support its continued presence and its role in south Lebanon, and that it condemns Israeli violations of Resolution 1701 and the violations by any other parties to the conflict,” he said.

Analyst Rizk decried the weak response by the UN and the international community, emphasizing that there would have been much harsher condemnation if Hezbollah was the aggressor.

The stance of countries like France and others in Europe has been relatively weak and “the same double standard which we see all the time,” he said.

However, Rizk believes that all of this “is further making Israel look like a pariah state.”

“The events with UNIFIL, I think, are only going to further isolate Israel. More importantly, they’re going to isolate the US if it continues its iron-clad support for Israel,” he said.

“The US is going to be seen as supporting a rogue pariah state, and I don’t think that bears very well for America and its allies.”​​​​​​​

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