The United Nations said on Sunday Israeli tanks had burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, the latest accusation of Israeli violations and attacks that have been denounced by Israel’s own allies.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the United Nations to evacuate the troops of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force from combat areas in Lebanon. Hours later, the force reported what it described as additional Israeli violations, including two Israeli Merkava tanks destroying the main gate of a base and forcibly entering before dawn that morning.
Soon after the tanks left, shells exploded 100 metres away, releasing smoke which blew across the base and sickened U.N. personnel, causing 15 to require treatment despite wearing gas masks, it said. It did not say who fired the shells or what sort of toxic substance it suspected.
It also accused Israel’s IDF military of halting a logistics convoy. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the statement.
Wait like the Actual UN?
I get that the UN has no real teeth, but the peacekeepers do have teeth.
The fuck is going on anymore. Like I get they have all sorts of freedom to fuck around because they have weapons given to them with no control over their use, but this seems to me they are truly beginning to test their fate.
Yeah, but this isn’t new. The Israeli paramilitary assassinated a UN mediator in 1948 because they were afraid his peace deal wouldn’t be good for the Israeli State
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte
The assassination was organized by Yitzhak Shamir, who was later elected as Israel’s prime minister.
1948 is a big stretch for me to agree with “isn’t new.” No one alive today would have been influential then, and many countries have significantly changed in that region of the world since 1948.
Now if stuff like this happened in the 80s, then I’d say yeah, 100% this is up their alley.
oh it gets worse. The US is sending in ground troops to help. Missile defense ground troops, but ground troops all the same. When a few of them get killed (in some fog of war event, I’m sure) we’ll send in a large armed contingent to “protect our lads”.
My personal nightmare theory is Netanyahu believes one of two things. Biden will not stop him because he believes Israel must be supported at all costs or Biden believes he cannot take action against Israel until after the election. So it is Netanyahu’s goal to start a war with Iran before the election, and make sure the US is drawn in.
In this case we know the troops were not Biden’s idea. Netanyahu specifically requested them. And for either of the reasons above Biden immediately approved the request.
I sincerely hope it’s just depression thoughts. But I will not be surprised if we end up pulled into a war with Iran just before or during the traditional lame duck period. Obviously if Trump wins this is all even worse. But putting troops under Iranian missiles is a breathtaking escalation of the conflict.
I’m pretty sure the US is only interested in doing that to protect US assets in Israel. There’s a shitload of money and intelligence there,
But the part that bothers me is that Israel already has an insane missile defence system why the fuck do they need the US resources on top of that?
That is where sending in the US troops to get them attacked and justify a great war comes in.
Exactly the point, IMO. Hell, they even have a name for such a deployment: tripwire forces.
I wonder if tripwire forces get a special patch for their uniform.
It’s a little claymore pin. “Front Towards Enemy” takes on a whole new meaning.
Yeah. We’ve been warned multiple times over the past couple decades that the Israeli far right has expansion on the agenda. And we derided them as conspiracy theorists and/or terrorist apologists.
Well. Here we are.
I don’t know if anyone here is interested in uncomfortable facts, but I’ll try my luck: UNIFIL has been neglecting their job for the past 18 years, and especially in the past year. Hezbollah has been firing rockets on Israel daily, directly from UNIFIL territory, and UNIFIL has done nothing to hinder them. The IDF revealed yesterday, with video proof, the existence of a tunnel entrance into a Hezbollah bunker, 100 meters away from a UNIFIL base, and 60 meters from a UNIFIL guard tower. It’s becoming apparent that UNIFIL isn’t truly neutral, and if they are that neglectful or incompetent, staying there puts them at risk, while Israel fights back.