In a wooded valley close to the Israeli border, United Nations peacekeepers showed AFP journalists a Hezbollah bunker they had uncovered in southern Lebanon, a former bastion of the militant group.
The UN Security Council voted on Thursday to end the mission of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in 2027, with the peacekeeping force facing US and Israeli opposition.
The peacekeepers, first deployed in 1978, have recently been working with the Lebanese army to enforce a November ceasefire that followed more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Lebanese group was badly weakened and, as part of the ceasefire deal, is required to withdraw from south Lebanon.
“This morning we conducted a recce in this valley that we identified as… of valuable interest” because it was hit by the Israeli military during the conflict, said Captain Tanguy, commander of the French reconnaissance and intervention troops, on Wednesday.
The site, on the outskirts of the village of Meri, was hidden among trees and accessible only on foot via a rough mountain path.
Green boxes filled with shells were scattered on the ground, while others were inside a storeroom that appeared to have been bombed.
“Inside the bunker we found an artillery cannon of 152 mm calibre. It’s Russian-made. It was facing eastward and southward,” Tanguy said.
– ‘Provide security’ –
“This type of cannon has a range of about 15 kilometres (around 10 miles) effectiveness,” he added.
Next to it were several dozen boxes each containing a 152 mm shell “ready to be used”.
“And as you can see the cannon is still intact”, Tanguy said.
“The next step would be for us to provide security in the area so the Lebanese Armed Forces can intervene and retrieve the valuable assets,” he said.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire, Hezbollah and Israel were both required to withdraw from south Lebanon, while UNIFIL has deployed alongside the Lebanese military to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure there, including a substantial network of tunnels.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in June that the Lebanese army had dismantled more than 500 Hezbollah military positions and weapons depots in the south.
UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP that since the ceasefire, peacekeepers had found 318 weapons caches in southern Lebanon.
Earlier this month, six Lebanese soldiers were killed in a blast at a weapons depot near the border that a military source said belonged to Hezbollah.
Under heavy US pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli military action, Lebanon’s government this month tasked the army with drawing up a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year.
For its part, Israel has retained troops at five points within Lebanon that it deems strategic. This month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested they would be withdrawn if Hezbollah were successfully disarmed.
– ‘Monitor and report’ violations –
Around 10,800 peacekeepers are stationed in southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL has been deployed since shortly after the Israeli invasion of 1978.
Their deployment has spanned the Israeli invasion of 1982, its subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon until 2000, the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah as well as the recent hostilities which began in October 2023 and culminated in open war last year during which Israel sent in ground troops.
The Security Council voted on Thursday to extend UNIFIL’s mandate one last time to the end of next year, with the force withdrawing by the end of 2027.
The definitive end to the mission was pushed for by the United States and welcomed by Israel.
Colonel Arnaud de Coincy, the commanding officer of UNIFIL’s quick-reaction Force Commander Reserve, said the peacekeepers would continue to support the Lebanese army “to provide all the expertise, all the assets we have, in order to help them” restore state authority to Lebanon’s south.
UNIFIL’s main role is to “monitor and to report any violation” of the ceasefire, he noted.
Clearly visible behind him was one of the five sites still held by Israeli troops, between the border towns of Kfar Kila and Burj al-Muluk.
Israel has also kept up regular strikes on what it says are Hezbollah sites and operatives in Lebanon despite the truce.
Tenenti said UNIFIL had recorded 5,095 Israeli air violations since the ceasefire began.
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© Agence France-Presse
