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On Friday, the United Nations Security Council renewed the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) for a year, and reduced the number of this force, calling on Beirut to facilitate access to the tunnels that cross the Blue Line separating Lebanon and Israel.
The diplomats noted that the council unanimously adopted a draft resolution drawn up by France by its 15 members.
The resolution stated that, “recognizing that UNIFIL has successfully fulfilled its mandate since 2006, which has enabled it to maintain peace and security since then,” the Council “decides to reduce the maximum number of military personnel from 15,000 to 13,000” .
In fact, that decision will not change much, a diplomat who requested anonymity told AFP, as there are currently 10,000 UNIFIL peacekeepers.
On the other hand, the text calls on the “government of Lebanon to facilitate rapid and full access by UNIFIL to the sites that the force wants to investigate, including all places north of the Blue Line (which separates Lebanon from Israel) and connected to the discovery of tunnels ”, allowing incursions into Israeli territory.
And the United States, which fully supports Israel, has lobbied since the beginning of the summer to reduce the number of UNIFILs and allow access to tunnels attributed to the Iranian-backed Shiite Hezbollah, which has its influence in southern Lebanon. .
The resolution urges the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, to “develop a detailed plan, with specific dates and mechanisms”, in coordination with Lebanon and the troop-contributing countries, with the aim of improving the performance of UNIFIL. .
In a report, Guterres called for the force to be “more flexible and more mobile.”
The Security Council asked Guterres to present the first elements of his plan within 60 days.
UNIFIL has been present in Lebanon since 1978, and was strengthened after a war between the Hebrew state and Hezbollah that lasted 33 days in the summer of 2006 and ended with the issuance of International Resolution 1701, which established a cessation of hostilities and strengthened the deployment and tasks of UNIFIL, as it had the task of monitoring the cessation of hostilities in coordination with the Lebanese army.
