ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday hit out at the United Nations for failing to prevent Israel from firing at its peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.
At least five UNIFIL peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as fighting ranges between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Erdogan said the UN was also to blame for failing to sanction Israel over its wars with Hezbollah and with Hamas in Gaza.
“The image of the UN which cannot protect its own personnel is shameful and worrying,” Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel, said in a televised address.
“Frankly, we ask ourselves what the (UN) Security Council is waiting for to stop Israel.
“Can you believe it? The Israeli tanks penetrate into the UNIFIL zone, attack peacekeeping soldiers, even wounding some of them, but the UN Security Council decides to just watch all this criminality from its stands — that’s what we call powerlessness.”
The UN condemned the attacks with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying they “may constitute a war crime.”
He said that Israeli soldiers had “deliberately breached” a UNIFIL compound.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on Guterres to move peacekeepers out of “harm’s way,” saying Hezbollah was using them as “human shields.”
UNIFIL, a mission of about 9,500 troops of various nationalities created following Israel’s 1978 invasion of Lebanon, has refused to leave its positions.
It has accused the Israeli military of “deliberately” firing on its positions.