The United Nations said Thursday it was "working on" maintaining a presence in Lebanon once the mandate for its UNIFIL peacekeeping force expires at the end of the year. "In terms of the post-UNIFIL, we're currently in the process of working on these options," said Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, with the Lebanese government "very clear that they would want to keep a UN presence". The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has served as a peacekeeping force between Israel and Lebanon since 1978 but finds itself caught in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on 2 March when Tehran-backed group Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel to avenge the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli airstrikes. UNIFIL comprises nearly 8,200 troops from 47 countries. It has lost five troops in recent days: three Indonesians were killed in Israeli attacks while two French lost their lives in gunfire the French president Emmanuel Macron blamed on Hezbollah.
The force has for months come under fire from Israeli forces occupying parts of southern Lebanon Lacroix told a press conference in Geneva that any future uniformed UN presence in southern Lebanon would have to be decided upon by the Security Council in New York. But, he said there were "a number of capacities.... which we have been providing" that Beirut would want to keep, such as monitoring, reporting, observing, and liaising. "A durable solution to the problem will have to take into account the security needs of Lebanon and of Israel," he said. (AFP and TNA staff)