A spokesperson for UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Saturday said that Israel had requested it leave its positions in south Lebanon where Israel is clashing with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, but they had refused.
They asked us to withdraw “from the positions along the blue line … or up to five kilometers (three miles) from the blue line,” UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Agence France-Presse (AFP), using the term for the demarcation line between both countries. “But there was a unanimous decision to stay,” he said.
Can/will the peacekeepers actually shoot back? I can’t imagine the orders that they were deployed under accounted for an Israeli ground invasion
The worst scenario, in self-defense, when life is threatened.
The US satellites won’t go against Israel.
There are three basic principles that continue to set UN peacekeeping operations apart as a tool for maintaining international peace and security.
These three principles are inter-related and mutually reinforcing:
-Consent of the parties -Impartiality -Non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandateSeems like they have activated condition 3.
Bigger question. Given that it’s the case that Israel’s issuing evacuation orders for places that it’s going to hit, why are people on the ground making the call to go or stay? Like, why hasn’t this policy call been made at a higher level?
Because it’s their own life at stake and they should always have the choice.
In a military operation, there are going to be directives as to how to act. You have RoEs, and usually normally countries are going to make calls as to what they want to do from a policy standpoint with their militaries.
The UN isn’t a military organization. It is a peacekeeping org and as such is not bound by the same operational rules as an army would be.
The soldiers are sent from the militaries of member countries.
That does not mean they work under military rules. They are under UN control, and the UN is a peacekeeping force. It is not a nation state military force.
The UN isn’t, but the soldiers themselves are, and are acting for their respective member state military:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_peacekeeping
Most of these operations are established and implemented by the United Nations itself, with troops obeying UN operational control. In these cases, peacekeepers remain members of their respective armed forces, and do not constitute an independent “UN army”, as the UN does not have such a force.
… with troops obeying UN operational control
That says the UN controls the troops.
They are not an army, they are a peacekeeping force.
They are also under UN rules, not their own nation’s.
If the UN decides they can choose to stay or leave, that’s what happens.
The Italian defense minister explained it pretty well: https://youtu.be/Ox0AzK7iVe4?si=1D4m8M7B-DIYcBci
There is a UNSC resolution, if Israel has a problem with that, they have to take it up with the UNSC.
