Israel's long animosity toward U.N. playing out in Lebanon

Oct. 14, 2024 1:14 PM PT

BEIRUT — The United Nations was instrumental in the creation and recognition of the state of Israel some seventy-six years ago.

But virtually ever since, animosity between the preeminent global body and the tiny Middle Eastern country has steadily grown, escalating now as U.N. forces have been drawn into Israel’s attacks in southern Lebanon.

At least four members of the 50-nation U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, assigned to Lebanon in 1978 to monitor the border with Israel, were injured in recent days by Israeli fire.

Israel says it was targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant and political faction.

But one incident involved Israeli tanks crashing through a gate at the UNIFIL compound in southern Lebanon, leaving numerous peacekeepers injured.

In another, Israeli fire generated a toxic smoke that sickened scores of peacekeepers, the U.N. said.

The Biden administration angrily condemned the actions harming U.N. forces. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unapologetic, saying peacekeepers should evacuate the region, essentially abandoning their U.N.-mandated mission.

That dispute comes amid other points of escalation in the multiple conflicts Israel is battling.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed late Sunday, and many more wounded, at an army training base in northern Israel. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for one of the deadliest domestic attacks ever on Israeli military personnel. It involved a Hezbollah drone that managed to evade Israel’s vaunted air-defense system and plow into a mess hall at the base.

“We need to investigate it, learn the details and quickly and effectively implement the lessons [learned],” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday after visiting the site.

The drone strike followed a Pentagon announcement that it was sending Israel an additional, sophisticated air defense system to help protect the country from further ballistic missile attacks by Iran.

Around 100 U.S. troops will also be deployed to help operate the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery. It marked the first significant assignment of U.S. military personnel to Israeli territory since war broke out in the Gaza Strip a year ago and is now spilling over into Lebanon.

Early Monday in Gaza, Israel shelled a camp sheltering about 5,000 Palestinians outside a hospital, killing at least four and burning dozens more whose tents went up in flames, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it was targeting a Hamas “command center.” Hours earlier, Israel struck a nearby U.N.-run school, in the Nuseirat camp, that had also been converted into a shelter. At least 20 people were reported killed.

The latest offensive in Gaza constituted “an endless hell,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, said on the social network X.

At least 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the last year, Gaza officials say.

The U.N. refugee agency, known by its initials UNRWA, is another major point of contention between Israel and the 193-nation international New York-based organization.

More than 12,000 UNRWA employees have for years worked as a critical lifeline in the Gaza Strip, providing healthcare, running schools and operating food banks for Palestinians living in what they describe as a veritable open-air prison.

A small number of UNRWA workers were implicated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel that Israel says killed some 1,200 people. The U.N. said it fired those employees who participated in the attack.

Israel has sought to ban UNRWA from Gaza, and last week Israel announced it was confiscating UNRWA’s headquarters in East Jerusalem, with the aim of building more than 1,400 settlements, which are considered illegal under international law. Washington and a handful of other Western nations suspended aid to UNRWA last year, but most of it has been restored.

Israel’s fights over UNIFIL and UNRWA are only the latest in a long-running relationship of hostility with the U.N.

Israel’s former ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, told a small group of journalists earlier this year that the initial goodwill and appreciation that the fledgling Israeli state felt toward the U.N. in 1948 faded in the ensuing years. The U.N. expanded beyond its initial coterie of mostly Western states to include dozens of countries, including in the Arab and Muslim world, that did not recognize Israel.

Most reject Israel’s continued occupation of land claimed by Palestinians.

The U.N. routinely condemns Israel in an assortment of resolutions. But any resolution that might have concrete impact on Israel is usually vetoed by the U.S.

Now, with the controversy centered on UNIFIL, Israel accuses the peacekeeping force of having been ineffective in preventing violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border and of failing to stop Hezbollah from building up a formidable military presence in southern Lebanon, in violation of U.N. decisions.

Israel’s current ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, accused Hezbollah of using UNIFIL positions as hiding places, and said the peacekeepers’ refusal to leave the region is “incomprehensible.”

“The U.N. must stop turning a blind eye to the fact that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization holding Lebanon hostage,” Danon said Monday.

The UNIFIL troops who number some 10,000 say, however, they will continue to carry out what they see as their duty under U.N. mandates.

After the end of the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, a wary truce was in effect in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL’s white armored vehicles, trucks and blue-helmeted personnel became a regular sight in towns and villages along the Lebanese side of the 74-mile “Blue Line,” the de facto border between the two countries.

Its maritime arm dispatched frigates and corvettes to patrol the coastal waters with little event. UNIFIL’s main job then was to coordinate troop movements on either side of the border, whether for security or maintenance purposes, and work on de-confliction. Though it had no direct dealings with Hezbollah, it nevertheless established contacts via the Lebanese army.

That changed when Hezbollah launched its cross-border rocket campaign the day after Hamas attacked southern Israel. Virtually overnight, what had been a relatively peaceful posting turned into an arena for an escalating tit-for-tat fight — with the U.N. caught in the middle.

“This is my third and worst tour here,” said Lt. Col. Bruno Vio, a UNIFIL press officer, during a visit to the area with UNIFIL over the summer. “The villages I knew from the past visits, now they’re empty; all the people gone.”

That was before Israel invaded Lebanon and ramped up airstrikes there in mid-September. At that point, rotations had been shortened from three months to 45 days because of the high risk. As of now, patrols have been suspended altogether, with troops hunkered in their compounds.

Times staff writer Bulos reported from Beirut and southern Lebanon; Wilkinson from Washington.