UN says Israeli tanks burst through gates of peacekeeper base

girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to World News@lemmy.world – 640 points –
reuters.com

The United Nations said on Sunday Israeli tanks had burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, the latest accusation of Israeli violations and attacks that have been denounced by Israel's own allies.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the United Nations to evacuate the troops of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force from combat areas in Lebanon. Hours later, the force reported what it described as additional Israeli violations, including two Israeli Merkava tanks destroying the main gate of a base and forcibly entering before dawn that morning.

Soon after the tanks left, shells exploded 100 metres away, releasing smoke which blew across the base and sickened U.N. personnel, causing 15 to require treatment despite wearing gas masks, it said. It did not say who fired the shells or what sort of toxic substance it suspected.

It also accused Israel's IDF military of halting a logistics convoy. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the statement.

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Has anyone informed Scorpius?!

Seriously though, Israel has proven over and over again that it has no respect for the UN whatsoever. Maybe it's time to kick them out, at least until they have a fucking non-genocidal government.

Seems like UN is Hamas.

I had a good feeling you were being sarcastic... but I have former acquaintances who have unironically posted things along the lines of "The UN says Israel's doing war crimes? They must have been paid off by Hamas."

So yeah, hard to tell nowadays.

You can't possibly believe that.

I thought "X is Hamas" is a fairly well established meme on Lemmy by this point.

Like I said elsewhere: Poe's Law. There are people who actually believe that sort of nonsense unfortunately.

Edit: In fact, someone just replied to me agreeing with you, except they're serious.

Oh, but they do Squid. Their comment/post history tells the story.

That's not true. You should look again at their comment history. Their comment above was making fun of Israel's tendency to retroactively label whoever they kill as Hamas.

You're either perpetuating the deep sarcasm or you ain't reading right. 😅 If the former - applause.

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What have those "peacekeepers" been doing for the past 20 years, aside from watching while Hezbollah turns southern Lebanon into a terrorist base? Do they snack on popcorn while watching Hezbollah's rockets fly into Israel?

Maybe you could look into it. Do you think there might be some sort of big global network of computers full of information you could use to find out?

You should use that network to look up "rhetorical question"

Your rhetorical question better be backed up with evidence if you don't want it getting deleted.

Edit: 9 hours later... no evidence.

The evidence is the fact that the UN has been stationed in southern Lebanon since 2006 and in that time Hezbollah has established bases all across the region, which is in direct violation of UN Resolution 1701, and now the IDF is coming across those bases and weapons caches within spitting distance of UN watchtowers. And even after Hezbollah declared war on Israel by launching rockets into Israel starting on Oct 8, 2023, those same UN peacekeepers have done nothing to stop them and have tried to prevent Israel from retaliating.

So although it was a rhetorical question, it really wasn't.

Sorry, you just declaring things to be the case is not evidence. No one has any reason to just take your word for it.

You get one more chance to provide actual evidence before you're out of here for spreading misinformation.

This is hilarious. I have to provide evidence for what literally everyone knows is happening in the world right now? Okay, here we go. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-lebanon-after-hezbollah-hits-shebaa-farms-2023-10-08/ https://abcnews.go.com/International/hezbollah-rocket-attacks-northern-israel-spark-fires-destroy/story?id=111593691 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/13/isarel-military-lebanon-south-hezbollah-war/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-peacekeepers-confirm-existence-of-tunnel-from-lebanon-into-israel/ (This is a good one. UNIFIL found a tunnel from Lebanon into Israel back in 2018 and said, "We'll speak to the Lebanese authorities about it." Well done.)

Sorry, none of that backs up your misinformation post that the UN peacekeepers have done nothing in Lebanon for the past 20 years but "snack on popcorn" while Hezbollah fires missiles.

None of that suggests that UNIFIL does nothing. In fact, if UNIFIL found that tunnel, they were doing something.

So you just admitted yourself that your initial comment was misinformation. You're gone.

I talked with Squid about this and we're restoring your comments. It looks to me like you both managed to talk right past each other.

You're right, the UN hasn't really done a thing to enforce resolution 1701. But then, when have UN troops EVER managed to enforce ANY resolution?

I'm old enough to remember George W. Bush arguing in favor of invading Iraq going "They're violating 17 UN resolutions!" and the reaction from sane people was "Yeah? And Israel is violating 80? 90? We going to invade Israel too?"

Where Squid went off was the whole "UN doing nothing" thing. It's pretty clear to me you MEANT nothing about 1701, but they are doing a lot of good humanitatarian work on the ground, you know, when Israel isn't SHOOTING AT THEM.

https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/unifil

"Following the July/August 2006 crisis, the Council enhanced the Force and decided that in addition to the original mandate, it would, among other things, monitor the cessation of hostilities; accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the south of Lebanon; and extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons."

If you need to blame somebody for failing to disarm Hezbollah, and it's obvious to anyone they have NOT disarmed, look toward the Lebanese army.

More on the UN mandate in regards to 1701 here:

https://unifil.unmissions.org/unifil-mandate

"Assist the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in taking steps towards the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL deployed in this area.

Assist the Government of Lebanon, at its request, in securing its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel."

The UN is not there to enforce the disarmament of Hezbollah. That's the job of the Lebanese, it's their country. The UN is purely there to assist.

Thank you. I didn't really understand what I did to warrant a ban.

I’m old enough to remember George W. Bush arguing in favor of invading Iraq going “They’re violating 17 UN resolutions!” and the reaction from sane people was “Yeah? And Israel is violating 80? 90? We going to invade Israel too?”> Okay, but also not analogous. Bush used this as justification for invading another country that didn't pose a threat to the US.

Where Squid went off was the whole “UN doing nothing” thing. It’s pretty clear to me you MEANT nothing about 1701, but they are doing a lot of good humanitatarian work on the ground, you know, when Israel isn’t SHOOTING AT THEM.> I'm sure they are. They're just not doing what they're supposed to be doing with respect to 1701, and their failure to do so poses an existential threat to Israel. I'm sure you're aware that in recent days the IDF has uncovered both Hezbollah plans to carry out a 10/7-style attack but on a larger scale, and multiple instances of Hezbollah operating from positions within very close proximity to UNIFIL positions. Kinds looks like UNIFIL has basically been providing cover for Hezbollah.

And you know full well that the Lebanese are controlled by Hezbollah. Unless they want to plunge the country into another devastating civil war, they're not going to challenge Hezbollah.

Well, if you want to argue "Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah" then you have to fault the UN for specifically putting the Lebanese government in charge of the operation to disarm Hezbollah.

If you read 1701, there are only 2 groups authorized to be armed between the river and the border, the UN and the Lebanese army and the UN is only present to assist the Lebanese army, they aren't there to take action on their own, that is not in their mandate.

So knowing all that, yeah, no surprise nothing has happened in 20 years. ;)

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