UN Security Council urges all parties to respect safety of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

By Diyar Guldogan and Serife Cetin

WASHINGTON / NEW YORK (AA) - The UN Security Council on Monday urged all parties to respect the safety and security of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.

Amid ongoing hostilities along the Blue Line, the de factor border between Israel and Lebanon, “the members of the Security Council expressed their strong concerns after several (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) UNIFIL positions came under fire in the past days," Pascale Baeriswyl, Switzerland’s UN ambassador, said after a meeting on Lebanon.

Reading the statement, Baeriswyl said the council members reiterated their support to UNIFIL, underscoring its role in supporting regional stability.

"They expressed as well their deep concern for civilian casualties and sufferings, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the rising number of internally displaced people. They called on all parties to abide by international humanitarian law," she added.

The members emphasized the need for diplomatic endeavors that would bring a durable end to the conflict and allow civilians on both sides of the Blue Line to return safely to their homes, she stressed.

Last week, four UNIFIL peacekeepers were injured by Israeli army shelling on their posts in southern Lebanon.

UNIFIL was established as interim force decades ago, in 1978, to help restore peace in the region and as a confirmation of Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,500 people, injuring over 4,500 others, and displacing more than 1.34 million people.

The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed nearly 42,300 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Mideast was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, it expanded the conflict on Oct. 1 by launching a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.