Beirut (AsiaNews) – Tensions and incidents are rising both locally and internationally between residents of south Lebanon and the United Nations peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) deployed in the area. The attack against a French UNIFIL patrol in the village of Qabrikha last Saturday (pictured) came only two days after Michael Williams, the UN special co-ordinator for Lebanon, said he was "very concerned" by a recent spate of incidents in which residents attacked UN soldiers.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri talked about the situation with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, both of whom are in Paris, gaining the latter’s support. Hariri later said, he “hoped there would be no provocations, which are in no one’s interest.”
The An-Nahar newspaper reported that the ambassadors of France, Italy and Spain, countries that provide the bulk of the UNIFIL contingent, visited south Lebanon in order to coordinate better their action a month before Resolution 1701 comes up for review. The UN Security Council adopted it in 2006 in order to deploy peacekeepers in the area south of the Litani River, to stop arms smuggling among other things.
Many believe and fear that Hizbollah is behind the attacks. The self-styled Party of God controls southern Lebanon and could easily push civilians to protest and attack peacekeepers.
Some lawmakers from Lebanon’s parliamentary majority want to see a debate on the issue, but in the country public opinion tends to be more cautious. A recent survey by the Magazine weekly indicated that 69 per cent of respondents believed the incidents were not unintentional.
Israeli defence officers, cited by the Jerusalem Post, said that the escalation in violence is the result of greater UNIFUL activity. “Hizbollah is not happy with this and is trying to deter the peacekeepers from entering the villages, which is home to most of their arms caches these days,” one official said.
The village of Hirbeit Sleim, where residents held a massive protest calling for an end to UNIFIL patrols, is the same where a Hizbollah arms cache hidden inside a home blew up last year.
Hizbollah denied being behind the unrest, but in an interview with the As-Safir newspaper on Friday, Naim Qassem, the group's deputy leader, described UNIFIL’s recent exercises as "suspicious”, adding that peacekeepers ought to “pay attention to what they do”.
For UNIFIL spokesperson Neeraj Singh, it is essential to secure UNIFIL's freedom of movement and that its mission has not changed since Resolution 1701 has not changed.
“The situation in 2006 forced Hizbollah to accept UNIFIL, but UNIFIL is helping to achieve what the Israelis want,” Elias Hanna, a retired general in the Lebanese army, told al Jazeera.
“If you implement 1701 word for word, it means you are denying Hizbollah the ability to act. It means you are choking Hizbollah. They will not allow it.”
