Council set to vote on extending UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon
The Security Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a resolution that would extend the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon for a year and demand a halt to the escalating exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.
Israel and Hezbollah pulled back after an exchange of heavy fire across the U.N.-drawn boundary between Israel and Lebanon known as the Blue Line over the weekend, but their decades-old conflict is far from over and regional tensions linked to the war in Gaza are still high.
The French-drafted resolution demands full implementation of a 2006 resolution demanding a cessation of hostilities between the two sides and underlines “that further escalation carries the high risk of leading to a widespread conflict.”
The draft, scheduled for a vote Wednesday morning, would extend the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL until Aug. 31, 2025.
UNIFIL was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after a 1978 invasion.
The Security Council expanded the mission after a 2006 war between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants so that peacekeepers could deploy along the Lebanon-Israel border to help Lebanese troops extend their authority into their country’s south for the first time in decades. That resolution also called for a full cessation of Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities, which has not happened.
The resolution to be voted on Wednesday strongly urges the “relevant actors” to implement “immediate measures towards de-escalation, including with a view to restoring calm, restraint and stability across the Blue Line.”
Source: Associated Press
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