reuters.com
www.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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    1205·
    2 months ago

    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.

          • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
            118·
            2 months ago

            I don’t see how it would do that.

            Edit: Unless you mean its for blowing itself up?

            • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
              19·
              2 months ago

              You clearly aren’t familiar with the French military beyond memes.

              You just need to know 3 words.

              Nuclear Warning Shot.

                • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  3·
                  2 months ago

                  Mechanically it’s a small nuke on a medium range Air to Surface Missile. They straight up told everyone it’s entire purpose is as “the last warning shot” before their nuclear missile submarines fire their entire load of nuclear ballistic missiles.

                  The other way I’ve heard the French cold war doctrine reasoned is, “we may not be able to stop the Russians at the Fulda Gap, but we’re all going to be picking through the rubble together this time.”

                • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                  3·
                  2 months ago

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

                  France is one of the five “Nuclear Weapons States” under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons.[4][5] France is the only member of the European Union to possess independent (non-NATO) nuclear weapons. France was the fourth country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon, doing so in 1960 under the government of Charles de Gaulle. The French military is currently thought to retain a weapons stockpile of around 300[6] operational (deployed) nuclear warheads, making it the fourth-largest in the world, speaking in terms of warheads, not megatons.[7] The weapons are part of the country’s Force de dissuasion, developed in the late 1950s and 1960s to give France the ability to distance itself from NATO while having a means of nuclear deterrence under sovereign control.

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.worldEnglish
    66·
    2 months ago

    Wait like the Actual UN?

    I get that the UN has no real teeth, but the peacekeepers do have teeth.

    The fuck is going on anymore. Like I get they have all sorts of freedom to fuck around because they have weapons given to them with no control over their use, but this seems to me they are truly beginning to test their fate.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      2 months ago

      Yeah. We’ve been warned multiple times over the past couple decades that the Israeli far right has expansion on the agenda. And we derided them as conspiracy theorists and/or terrorist apologists.

      Well. Here we are.

    • erez@programming.devEnglish
      410·
      2 months ago

      I don’t know if anyone here is interested in uncomfortable facts, but I’ll try my luck: UNIFIL has been neglecting their job for the past 18 years, and especially in the past year. Hezbollah has been firing rockets on Israel daily, directly from UNIFIL territory, and UNIFIL has done nothing to hinder them. The IDF revealed yesterday, with video proof, the existence of a tunnel entrance into a Hezbollah bunker, 100 meters away from a UNIFIL base, and 60 meters from a UNIFIL guard tower. It’s becoming apparent that UNIFIL isn’t truly neutral, and if they are that neglectful or incompetent, staying there puts them at risk, while Israel fights back.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
      281·
      2 months ago

      Yeah, but this isn’t new. The Israeli paramilitary assassinated a UN mediator in 1948 because they were afraid his peace deal wouldn’t be good for the Israeli State

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte

      The assassination was organized by Yitzhak Shamir, who was later elected as Israel’s prime minister.

      • peopleproblems@lemmy.worldEnglish
        61·
        2 months ago

        1948 is a big stretch for me to agree with “isn’t new.” No one alive today would have been influential then, and many countries have significantly changed in that region of the world since 1948.

        Now if stuff like this happened in the 80s, then I’d say yeah, 100% this is up their alley.

    • sorval_the_eeter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      231·
      2 months ago

      oh it gets worse. The US is sending in ground troops to help. Missile defense ground troops, but ground troops all the same. When a few of them get killed (in some fog of war event, I’m sure) we’ll send in a large armed contingent to “protect our lads”.

      • peopleproblems@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        2 months ago

        I’m pretty sure the US is only interested in doing that to protect US assets in Israel. There’s a shitload of money and intelligence there,

        But the part that bothers me is that Israel already has an insane missile defence system why the fuck do they need the US resources on top of that?

      • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        2 months ago

        My personal nightmare theory is Netanyahu believes one of two things. Biden will not stop him because he believes Israel must be supported at all costs or Biden believes he cannot take action against Israel until after the election. So it is Netanyahu’s goal to start a war with Iran before the election, and make sure the US is drawn in.

        In this case we know the troops were not Biden’s idea. Netanyahu specifically requested them. And for either of the reasons above Biden immediately approved the request.

        I sincerely hope it’s just depression thoughts. But I will not be surprised if we end up pulled into a war with Iran just before or during the traditional lame duck period. Obviously if Trump wins this is all even worse. But putting troops under Iranian missiles is a breathtaking escalation of the conflict.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    922·
    2 months ago

    Why are are even calling them UN peacekeepers if they prevent violence from one side, but allow it on the other?

    • Monomate@lemm.eeEnglish
      441·
      2 months ago

      If they’re indeed peacekeepers, then they failed their job miserably. As it stands, their only usefulness is being human shields for Hezbollah.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        311·
        2 months ago

        If they’re indeed peacekeepers, then they failed their job miserably. As it stands, their only usefulness is being human shields for Hezbollah.

        How many Hezbollah are you saying were in the UN base when Israeli tanks broke through the gates?

      • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
        11·
        2 months ago

        Their job isn’t to stop war crimes. Their job is go record war crimes and report back to the UN, where the world’s job is to use this information to stop future war crimes by diplomatic or violent methods

        • Monomate@lemm.eeEnglish
          19·
          2 months ago

          Then maybe they should identify themselves as war inspectors or historians? “Peacekeepers” is kinda misleading…

          • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
            9·
            2 months ago

            That’s what a peacekeeper is. Thats literally what a peacekeeper does.

            Peacekeepers aren’t people who use violence to keep peace. They are people who use nonviolence to keep peace, diplomatically.

            The word for what you’re thinking of is “soldier”

            • Monomate@lemm.eeEnglish
              16·
              2 months ago

              The moment Hezbollah resorted to launching missiles at Israeli territory, and Israel fought back, then diplomacy failed already.

  • photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    761·
    2 months ago

    In its version of events, the Israeli military said militants of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah had fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli troops, wounding 25 of them. The attack was very close to a UNIFIL post and a tank helping evacuate the casualties under fire then backed into the UNIFIL post, it said. “It is not storming a base. It is not trying to enter a base. It was a tank under heavy fire, mass casualty event, backing up to get out of harm’s way,” the military’s international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told reporters. In a statement, the military said it used a smoke screen to provide cover for the evacuation of the wounded soldiers but its actions posed no danger to the U.N. peacekeeping force.

    OK, sounds plausible enough…

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “The time has come for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones.” "The IDF has requested this repeatedly and has met with repeated refusal, which has the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields

    You want to have your cake and eat it too. Why do you want the peacekeepers out? Why not coordinate with them?

    • DarthJon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      483·
      2 months ago

      They want them out because they don’t want them caught in the crossfire. They serve no purpose there, so might as well GTFO before they get killed.

      • jpreston2005@lemmy.worldEnglish
        15·
        2 months ago

        The UN Peace Keeping Force is there for a number of things, but mainly to Keep the Peace.

        They help citizens in a crisis, they monitor for illegal activity (including war crimes), and help with aid distribution. Their efforts are being hindered by the idf:

        UNIFIL has said previous Israeli attacks on a watchtower, cameras, communications equipment and lighting had limited its monitoring abilities. U.N. sources say they fear any violations of international law in the conflict will be impossible to monitor.

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
          541·
          2 months ago

          Their job is to record war crimes. Israel doesn’t like when people record their war crimes. Thats why they’ve murdered hundreds (thousands?) of journalists

            • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
              27·
              2 months ago

              Well there’s some. France has stopped sending weapons. Ireland has issued sanctions. The South Africans have fucking brought them to court for genocide. Nicaragua just cut diplomatic ties.

              There’s been varying degrees of consequences from maybe a quarter of the world’s countries.

              But we need more, of course. Especially from the US.

      • kaffiene@lemmy.worldEnglish
        36·
        2 months ago

        They don’t want to be observed. Just as with Gaza where they won’t let foriegn journalists in

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
      875·
      2 months ago

      Why do you want the peacekeepers out? Why not coordinate with them?

      Because the Peacekeepers aren’t there to fight a war, that’s not their role. The real question is, what are they still there for? There is no real answer from the UN about this. Their mission was to try to disarm Hezbollah, which they clearly they didn’t accomplish. Now Hezbollah is using the weapons the UN was supposed to remove (but didn’t) to fight the IDF. And the UN is apparently just going to leave Peacekeepers stranded in the middle of a warzone because they’re still pretending there isn’t a war happening? Or are they hoping for a conflict to occur between the Peacekeeping force and the IDF? Like is the UN now trying to escalate the conflict? Really, what are they trying to accomplish?

      Sure, never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and the UN is a very incompetent organization. But this is getting so it goes beyond being able to be explained by incompetence.

  • blady_blah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    70·
    2 months ago

    “We don’t want witnesses to our human rights violations. These ‘accidents’ will keep happening until you leave.”

  • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOPEnglish
    664·
    2 months ago

    The spoiled child of the middle east throwing a temper tantrum that has hurt people.

    Now what will Biden do to reign in Bibi and his mercenaries?

    • sorval_the_eeter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      2 months ago

      Its faster to quantify what Biden would Not do for Netenyahu than figure out what he will do. i cant think of a single thing Biden wouldnt do if Netenyahu told him to. He’d cheerfully drop to his knees and felate the entire IDF if told to, and then write Netenyahu another check of our tax money, to thank the IDF for the opportunity.

    • EABOD25@lemm.eeEnglish
      293·
      2 months ago

      Nothing. It’s election year. If Biden does something, then Harris is going to be asked to up the ante which could be criticized as a running promise that might not be followed up on and cost her points

      That’s the only credit I will give Trump. He’s not afraid to throw guarantees and promises around like they’re Halloween candy. Now him following up on them (especially that don’t benefit him or his friends) is a different story…