UNIFIL Under the Thumb of Hezbollah

A former member of UNTSO — a predecessor of UNIFIL — is a Danish soldier who last served in southern Lebanon ten years ago. Under the alias Michael, he has just been interviewed on Danish television as to his experience as a peacekeeper, which included some alarming observations about UNIFIL. In southern Lebanon, UNIFIL was supposed to keep the area between the Blue Line (the border separating Lebanon and Israel) and the Litani River demilitarized, a place from which Hezbollah was to have been banned, as required by UNSC Resolution 1701. Instead, UNIFIL was completely subservient to Hezbollah, which increased its combatant strength, hid its weapons, and dug its tunnels from Lebanon into Israel, right under the noses of UNIFIL soldiers. Most of the time these violations of UNSC Resolution 1701 were ignored by UNIFIL, but when they were reported, nothing was done. “The UN was incompetent” and “totally subject to Hezbollah,” concluded Michael in his scathing televised account. More on Hezbollah and UNIFIL’s failure can be found here: “‘We were completely at Hezbollah’s mercy,’ former UN peacekeeper says,” by Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post, October 21, 2024:

A former United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) soldier, under the alias Michael, testified that UNIFIL was “totally subject to Hezbollah” when he worked in Lebanon 10 years ago in an interview with Danish news site B.T. on Sunday.

UNSTO, founded in 1948, is the first peacekeeping mission the United Nations ever created; with the mission of “monitor[ing] ceasefires, supervise[ing] armistice agreements, prevent[ing] isolated incidents from escalating and assist[ing] other UN peacekeeping operations in the region to fulfil their respective mandates.

The soldier had been tasked with observing and reporting violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006, which called for southern Lebanon to be without Hezbollah.

Despite the organization’s mission, Michael reported, “We were totally subject to Hezbollah. We clearly had limited freedom of movement. For example, we never operated after dark for fear of Hezbollah. So they had free time in the evening and night hours.”

Michael also reported that UNIFIL and UNTSO workers had their access to cities in southern Lebanon restricted by Hezbollah, who would stop them when they tried to enter certain areas.

“They simply blocked the road. They were not visibly armed but aggressive, and it was quite clear that they were members of Hezbollah – we knew very well who decided things, especially in the Shiite cities,” said Michael. “They didn’t want us to see what they were doing.”…

The UNTSO and UNIFIL soldiers were supposed to have free access to the cities in southern Lebanon, in order to check on possible violations of Resolution 1701, but they were blocked from entering certain areas — the very areas, obviously, where violations by Hezbollah were taking place — and they did not dare to challenge the group..

“When we patrolled the Blue Line, we often saw ‘civilians’ very close to the Israeli military installations taking pictures,” he said. ”When that happened, we withdrew and observed from a distance – we were simply instructed to do so.”

These “civilians” were obviously members of Hezbollah, conducting military intelligence operations that were forbidden by UNSC Resolution 1701, but instead of preventing them from this activity, the UNIFIL solders were told to withdraw and meekly obeyed.

Michael added that his ability to report what was happening to the security council was also limited, as Hezbollah terrorists would confiscate his devices if he attempted to collect evidence.

If he tried to record what he observed by taking photographs or dictating into a tape recorder what he saw, or typing a report into a portable computer, he was foiled by Hezbollah, which at the first sign of such recording would confiscate the device in question. He could only report on what he committed to memory.

Some outsourced workers for UNIFIL and UNTSO were also vocally supportive of Hezbollah, Michael recalled.

“We had a number of interpreters who were indoctrinated into Hezbollah. I ended up throwing one of them out of my car once while he was praising Hassan Nasrallah. I simply didn’t want to listen to it,’ Michael claimed….

Within the ranks of UNIFIL’s staff, including interpreters, there were Hezbollah supporters who, of course, were likely to keep Hezbollah abreast of where the UNIFIL soldiers would next be inspecting, and of what was contained in the reports they were compiling, or which soldiers in UNIFIL ranks were deemed hostile, and which deemed friendly to Hezbollah. All such information could only help Hezbollah In its attempts to deceive UNIFIL.

The whole UNIFIL experience was a joke. The soldiers were foiled at almost every turn by Hezbollah, that kept them from inspecting areas of cities where Hezbollah was up to no good, and that managed to dig its tunnels into Israel without UNIFIL noticing. And while the UNIFIL soldiers were told to report those violations that they nonetheless managed to detect, “nothing ever happened.” There was no mechanism for punishing Hezbollah or changing its behavior. Reports of Hezbollah violations of Resolution 1701 sent to the UN Security Council continued to pile up in New York, but nothing ever came of them.

Those structures that Hezbollah built close to the border with Israel were off-limits to UNIFIL inspectors. These were the very places where the tunnels were dug, and they were off-limits to UNIFIL. A network of terror tunnels snaking from Lebanon into Israel was created that began under the roofs of those civilian houses that UNIFIL was not allowed to inspect.

UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti, in an interview with KAN on Wednesday, claimed the organization would not evacuate “at the request of the Israeli authorities, but in accordance with the request of the Security Council and the international community.”

“It is important to maintain the ability to monitor the area so that it is possible to report to New York and the international community,” he further told KAN. “And it is important for both sides to have an impartial and unbiased force that can do this. Additionally, it’s important these days to provide humanitarian aid to thousands of people who are still stuck in villages in the south of the country.”

An “impartial and unbiased force”? When we know that UNIFIL staff includes supporters of Hezbollah? When some of the soldiers, such as the one from Ireland mentioned by Michael, are filled with an anti-Israel animus? When the UNIFIL soldiers are so fearful of Hezbollah that they turn away from areas in southern cities blocked by Hezbollah operatives from being inspected? When UNIFIL doesn’t dare to enter the houses built by Hezbollah close to the Blue Line where, it turns out, tunnels into Israel were being dug?

The UN doesn’t dare complain of Hezbollah’s many infractions, but is quick to complain about Israeli forces that supposedly “deliberately” fired on a UNIFIL watchtower. But the IDF claims it was an accident, the result of Hezbollah placing its forces right next to the watchtower.

Perhaps UNIFIL, that has proven so inept at keeping the area between the Blue Line and the Litani River free of Hezbollah and other armed groups, will now be sent to police other theatres of war.The IDF is systematically clearing Hezbollah operatives of southern Lebanon, and is likely to want to remain in the area to ensure that Hezbollah does not return. Why would the IDF, given UNIFIL’s dismal record, ever agree to pull out and let UNIFIL again take over the task of policing southern Lebanon? Why would the IDF, given UNIFIL’s dismal record until now, ever agree to pull out and let UNIFIL again take over the task of policing southern Lebanon?