Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged the United Nations to pull out its troops from southern Lebanon as the Israeli military continues its ground offensive against the Hezbollah terrorist group.
In a televised speech on Sunday, Prime Minister Netanyahu directly addressed the UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres, urging him to remove the multinational forces, also known as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), from the combat zone along Israel’s northern border.
Created in 1978, the so-called UN Peacekeepers watched idly as Iran-backed Hezbollah in recent years built its extensive underground terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
After the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on September 23 launched a ground operation to drive Hezbollah away from its border, the UN soldiers were increasingly being used by the terrorist group as human shields against the advancing Israeli troops.
The Israeli prime minister slammed the UN chief Guterres for “making UNIFIL soldiers hostages of Hezbollah” by refusing to evacuate from harm’s way.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
United Nations peacekeepers must be evacuated from southern Lebanon now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a call to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.”From here I want to appeal directly to the UN Secretary-General,” Netanyahu said in a video statement in Hebrew about the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) which monitors the Israeli-Lebanese border.“It is time for you [Guterres] to remove UNIFIL from Hezbollah’s strongholds and from the fighting areas,” Netanyahu stated.He rephrased in English: “Mr. Secretary General, get the UNIFIL forces out of harm’s way. It should be done right now, immediately.”He spoke after two incidents in which IDF fire hit UNIFIL bases on the Lebanese side of the north border. (…)European countries and the United States have called on Israel to ensure that the peacekeepers can safely operate, despite its military operation to push Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon.The IDF has repeatedly asked for this, and has been met with repeated refusals, Netanyahu said, explaining that keeping the peacekeepers at their base, turns them into human shields for Hezbollah.“Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers.”
Since the IDF ground operation in southern Lebanon began last month, Hezbollah terrorists used positions near UNFIL posts to fire numerous rockets at Israeli troops and civilians. “Over the past month, approximately 25 rockets and missiles have been launched at Israeli communities and IDF troops from Hezbollah’s terrorist compounds embedded near UNIFIL posts in southern Lebanon, exploiting their proximity to UN forces. One of the attacks resulted in the deaths of two IDF soldiers,” the Israeli military disclosed in a statement Sunday night.
The IDF repeatedly requested the UN to remove the troops from the Hezbollah-controlled border areas. The UN, backed with some European countries such as Ireland, has rejected the Israeli pleas.
The “Irish Government has informed Israeli officials that Unifil troop movements are a matter for the UN and its force commander on the ground,” The Irish Times reported October 4. “Unifil has told Israel it will not be removing the troops.”
The UNIFIL troops, on Sunday, complained that Israeli tanks ‘destroyed’ a ‘gate’ outside one of their compounds in southern Lebanon. “Two Israeli tanks “destroyed” the main gate of a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) position in the south of the country this morning, the force says in a statement,” the BBC reported.
At least 67 people were wounded, including 5 in critically injured in a Hezbollah drone strike on Sunday evening in northern Israel. “The number of wounded in the drone attack in the Binyamina area has risen to 67, according to medics,” The Times of Israel reported. “The number of critically wounded remains at four, with five seriously injured and 14 moderately hurt.”
This is the biggest terror strike of its kind since the Hezbollah renewed hostilities on October 8, 2023. In late July, 12 children were killed and several injured when a Hezbollah missile struck a soccer field in Golan Heights. “Dozens of casualties have been sustained from a drone strike in the Binyamin area of northern Israel; it is the highest number of casualties in a single event since the October 7 massacre,” the Israeli news website YNET reported.
The Israeli air forces and ground troops destroyed hundreds of Hezbollah targets as the ground operation in southern Lebanon nears its third week.
“IDF troops continue to operate in southern Lebanon to dismantle terrorist infrastructure,” the Israeli military said in a statement Sunday. “Over the past day, the troops eliminated dozens of terrorists, exposed tunnel shafts, and located numerous weapons including launchers, anti-tank missiles, munitions, and more.”
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) hit several terrorists targeted across Lebanon. “Over the past day, the IAF has struck approximately 200 Hezbollah targets deep in Lebanon and southern Lebanon, including terrorist cells, launchers, anti-tank missile posts, and terrorist infrastructure sites,” the IDF disclosed.
The IDF also pressed ahead with its ground operation against Hamas terrorist buildup in the area of Jabalia, northern Gaza. “[O]ver the past day, IDF troops continued to operate throughout the Gaza Strip and have struck approximately 40 terror targets and eliminated dozens of terrorists,” the military revealed.
Israeli military in southern Lebanon captured a Hezbollah terrorist hiding in an underground bunker, the Israel media reported. The terrorist has been brought to Israel for interrogation, the IDF confirmed Sunday.
Israeli “troops identified a tunnel shaft inside a building leading to a 50-square-meter room some seven meters underground,” The Times of Israel reported. “The terror operative was hunkered down in the bunker, which also held weapons and supplies for an extended stay underground.”
The IDF revealed the details of the capture in a press statement:
During IDF limited, localized, targeted raids based on precise intelligence in the southern Lebanon area, soldiers discovered an underground tunnel shaft in a building leading to a hideout area for terrorists with an adjacent exit shaftThe troops encircled the building, scanned the tunnel shaft, and discovered an underground compound at a depth of approximately 7 meters and a 50-meter hideout area, where a Hezbollah terrorist was embedded alongside weapons and equipment for a long-term stay.After the terrorist surrendered and was apprehended, the soldiers interrogated him on-site and then transferred him to a detention facility for further questioning within Israel.
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