Lebanon15 September, 20262 min read
Rmeich Residents Fear UNIFIL Withdrawal Will Sever Ties In Israeli-Occupied Southern Lebanon
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UN peacekeepers’ withdrawal fuels fear of severed ties for Rmeich residents. Six months of bombardment left villages abandoned and displaced hundreds of thousands.
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UNIFIL exit fears
In Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon, residents of Christian towns such as Rmeich fear their link with the rest of Lebanon will be severed when UN peacekeeping vehicles stop operating in the area at the end of the year.
“What's going to happen to us? What's going to happen to these shop owners and these merchants?”
Reuters reported that UNIFIL convoys were the only cars on the road as they passed bombed-out buildings, and that entry from the rest of Lebanon is controlled from newly established Israeli checkpoints.
George Ibrahim, a 45-year-old schoolteacher from Rmeich, told Reuters, "What's going to happen to us? What's going to happen to these shop owners and these merchants?"
Ibrahim added, "Without UNIFIL, I don't know what the future is," as Reuters said more than six months of Israeli bombardment and demolition, triggered by a Hezbollah rocket attack in early March, left villages abandoned and residents forcibly displaced across swathes of land.
Aid, checkpoints, and mandates
Reuters said UNIFIL troops have been escorting convoys of food and other goods to Christian towns since Israel seized the zone, but that residents in Rmeich said stocks of fresh produce and fuel were beginning to run low and fruit and vegetable shops were closed. The report described aid and goods convoys destined for Rmeich being canceled at the 11th hour without an established reason, and said that while UNIFIL made at least two trips into the Israeli zone, they did not escort supplies.
Captain Julien, who heads a French reconnaissance company within UNIFIL, told Reuters, "Civilians need support from UNIFIL, and that's what we are providing," and said a security escort was needed to cross the many Israeli checkpoints in the occupied zone. In NPR’s account of a rare look inside Israeli-controlled territory, Jane Arraf said, "Israel has destroyed a lot of the villages along the border," and described the road as "heavily damaged by military traffic" while UNIFIL’s mission was set to end this year due to U.S. and Israeli pressure.
What comes next
Reuters warned that if no extension is granted, UNIFIL will begin gradually closing its bases starting January 1, with more than 7,500 peacekeepers from nearly 50 countries leaving and handing positions to Lebanese forces. The Reuters report also said more than half of UNIFIL's nearly 50 bases now lie within Israeli-occupied territory, including its headquarters at Naqoura, only accessible by crossing two Israeli military checkpoints.
NPR’s transcript described Israel saying its troops will remain indefinitely in what it calls a buffer zone, meaning they will likely be here after UN peacekeepers are gone, and it placed the peacekeeping force in a patrol routine of documenting and monitoring explosives and destructions. In Al-Manar’s account of Lebanese MP Ihab Hamadeh, he criticized a government accountability session for omitting what he described as the Israeli occupation and citizens’ daily living concerns, and he said he submitted a documented and illustrated file about approximately 4,000 Lebanese families forcibly displaced from Syria.