UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres flatly rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that Guterres withdraw UN peacekeeping troops from southern Lebanon. “Peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly” along Lebanon’s border with Israel, Guterres’ spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement, reported Jerusalem Post. “The Secretary-General reiterates that the safety and security of UN personnel and property must be guaranteed and that the inviolability of UN premises must be respected at all times,” he said.
Guterres, Dujarric said, has stressed that “UNIFIL personnel and its premises must never be targeted. Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime.”
