Few hours before the UN Security Council convenes in order to discuss and pass a resolution to renew the UNIFIL mission, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant raided the international organization’s headquarters in New York in order to meet wit its Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Gallant told Guterres that the Lebanese-Palestinian borders will likely witness an imminent escalation, calling for reinforcing the UNFIL movement and freedom in southern Lebanon.

‘Israel’, backed by the United States and some European states, are plotting to turn the UN peacekeepers into combat forces that fight Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese Foreign Minister in the caretaker government, Abdullah Bou Habib, had announced Lebanon’s rejection of the draft resolution put forward by the United Nations Security Council regarding the renewal of the UNIFIL force’s mandate.

Bou Habib explained that the draft “does not refer to the necessity and importance of UNIFIL coordinating its operations with the Lebanese government, represented by the Lebanese army.”

The Foreign Minister affirmed Lebanon’s refusal to legitimize the transfer of UNIFIL’s mandate from Chapter VI, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006, which calls for resolving the conflict by peaceful means, to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which calls for imposing the resolution by force.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, meanwhile, voiced firm rejection to the United Nations Security Council’s draft resolution on renewing UNIFIL force mandate in Lebanon, noting that the draft is aimed at turning the international peacekeepers into Israeli spies.

Source: Agencies