BEIRUT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on the UN chief to move UN peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon out of “harm’s way.”
Netanyahu’s appeal to UN chief Antonio Guterres comes a day after the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, refused to withdraw from the border area despite five of its members being wounded in Israeli fire in recent days.
“Mr Secretary General, get the UNIFIL forces out of harm’s way. It should be done right now, immediately,” Netanyahu said in a video statement issued by his office, in what were his first comments on the issue.
Netanyahu, speaking at a cabinet meeting, said Israeli forces had asked UNIFIL several times to leave but it had “met with repeated refusals” that provided a “human shield to Hezbollah terrorists.”
“Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers,” Netanyahu said.
“We regret the injuring of UNIFIL soldiers and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injuring. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone.”
UNIFIL has refused to leave its positions in southern Lebanon.
“There was a unanimous decision to stay because it’s important for the UN flag to still fly high in this region, and to be able to report to the Security Council,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP in an interview on Saturday.
Tenenti said Israel had asked UNIFIL to withdraw from positions “up to five kilometers (three miles) from the Blue Line” separating both countries, but the peacekeepers refused.
That would have included its 29 positions in Lebanon’s south.
UNIFIL, a mission of about 9,500 troops of various nationalities that was created in 1978, is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.
Forty nations that contribute to the peacekeeping force in Lebanon said on Saturday that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers.
“Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” said the joint statement, posted on X by the Polish UN mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India.
Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’
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Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’
- Netanyahu’s appeal to UN chief Antonio Guterres comes a day after UNIFIL refused to withdraw
Soleimani warned Al-Assad about ‘spy’ Luna Al-Shibl: Al-Majalla
LONDON: The late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani confronted Syria’s National Security Bureau chief Ali Mamlouk in late 2019 after seeing Luna Al-Shibl leaving his office. Al-Majalla magazine claims its reporters reviewed a document containing the full Arabic transcript of their exchange.
Soleimani reportedly asked, “Who is this?” and Mamlouk replied, “She is Louna Al-Shibl, the president’s adviser.”
The Quds Force commander pressed further: “I know, I know… but who is she really? Where did she work?”
According to Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, he said her former salary was “ten thousand dollars,” compared with her current salary of “five hundred thousand Syrian pounds,” before asking: “Does it make sense for someone to leave ten thousand dollars for five hundred thousand pounds? She is a spy.”
Both Soleimani and Maher Al-Assad, commander of the Syrian army’s powerful Fourth Division, had warned the ousted president’s inner circle about Al-Shibl, Al-Majalla reported.
‘Suspicious’ car crash
On July 2, 2024, Al-Shibl was involved in what officials described as a traffic accident on the Damascus-Dimas highway. She was hospitalized and died four days later.
But Al-Majalla reported that photos of her armored BMW showed only minor damage, raising immediate questions among those close to the case.
Eyewitnesses told the magazine that the crash was intentional. One said, “a car approached and rammed her vehicle,” and before her bodyguard could exit, “a man attacked her and struck her on the back of the head,” causing paralysis that led to her death.
She was first taken to Al-Saboura clinic, then transferred to Al-Shami Hospital. Several senior regime-linked figures, including businessman Mohammed Hamsho and an aide to Maher Al-Assad, were present when her condition deteriorated. One witness told Al-Majalla that when her bodyguard tried to explain what had happened, “he was arrested immediately in front of the others.”
The presidency later issued a brief statement announcing her death. Her funeral was attended only by a handful of officials. Then president Al-Assad did not attend.
