A spokesperson for UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Saturday said that Israel had requested it leave its positions in south Lebanon where Israel is clashing with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, but they had refused.

They asked us to withdraw “from the positions along the blue line … or up to five kilometers (three miles) from the blue line,” UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Agence France-Presse (AFP), using the term for the demarcation line between both countries. “But there was a unanimous decision to stay,” he said.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    3 months ago

    Bigger question. Given that it’s known that Israel’s issuing evacuation orders for places that it’s going to hit, why are people on the ground making the call to go or stay? Like, why hasn’t this policy call been made at a higher level?

    I’d understand if this were the first one going out and nobody had time to make a policy call on it. Then you have to make an ad hoc call quickly.

    But this isn’t that situation, not now.

    • Kokesh@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      israeli government/army are the same assholes as those fuckers surrounding them. hamas, hezbollah, all same shit.

      • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 months ago

        Gotta love accounts saying why aren’t they just following Israel ordersthen finding them saying Israel is keeping the civilian killed ratio at low levels in the same say

    • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
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      3 months ago

      Why would a peacekeeping force listen to the ones being the aggressors?

      Why would anyone be dumb enough to try and order them around or shoot them?

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        3 months ago

        In a military operation, there are going to be directives as to how to act. You have RoEs, and usually normally countries are going to make calls as to what they want to do from a policy standpoint with their militaries.

        • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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          3 months ago

          The UN isn’t a military organization. It is a peacekeeping org and as such is not bound by the same operational rules as an army would be.

          • tal@lemmy.today
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            3 months ago

            The soldiers are sent from the militaries of member countries.

            • small44@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Doesn’t mean they have the same obligations as normal soldiers. Like unifil soldiers can’t engage in offensive attacks unlike soldiers in the members countries armies. Their role is to monitor rather than engage militarly. I don’t even think the country members have also the authority to order them to move due to the contract

            • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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              3 months ago

              That does not mean they work under military rules. They are under UN control, and the UN is a peacekeeping force. It is not a nation state military force.

              • tal@lemmy.today
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                3 months ago

                The UN isn’t, but the soldiers themselves are, and are acting for their respective member state military:

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_peacekeeping

                Most of these operations are established and implemented by the United Nations itself, with troops obeying UN operational control. In these cases, peacekeepers remain members of their respective armed forces, and do not constitute an independent “UN army”, as the UN does not have such a force.

                • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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                  3 months ago

                  … with troops obeying UN operational control

                  That says the UN controls the troops.

                  They are not an army, they are a peacekeeping force.

                  They are also under UN rules, not their own nation’s.

                  If the UN decides they can choose to stay or leave, that’s what happens.

                  • tal@lemmy.today
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                    3 months ago

                    They are not an army,

                    They are members of their own state militaries acting in an operation headed by the UN.

                    They have ROEs and similar orders handed to them.

                    kagis

                    Here’s a sample UN peacekeeping RoE for a recent exercise simulating an actual operation.

                    https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/siteassets/english/swedint/engelska/swedint/courses/unsoc/d-29-roe-incl-annex-a-d.pdf

                    It’ll lay out the conditions under which one attacks and to what degree peacekeepers should hold maintain a position given the possibility that it is attacked, who they are authorized to engage, and such.

                    In this situation, you’ve got an active conflict underway between Hezbollah and Israel. Like, this isn’t going to be a “there’s nobody shooting at each other” situation. My point is that normally, countries are pretty particular about the lines for international conflict, and I’d expect an RoE to have specified whether they are expected to maintain positions during an evacuation order or not.