UNIFIL Troops Said About Israeli Atrocities in Southern Lebanon

TEHRAN (Defapress) - UN peacekeepers patrolling southern Lebanon have faced a sharp increase in “aggressive behavior” from Israeli forces over the past year, including grenades launched from drones and machine gun fire.

More than 7,500 peacekeepers from 48 countries are deployed in southern Lebanon. The number of incidents has increased from just one in January to 27 in December, according to the report. The hilly border area where UNIFIL troops patrol has seen decades of cross-border violence. This comes as Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia fought a full-scale war in 2024.

The report claims that the targeting of peacekeepers is aimed at weakening international forces and strengthening Israel’s military presence along the UN-drawn border with Lebanon, known as the Blue Line.

Israel, on the other hand, has long distrusted UNIFIL, accusing it of failing to prevent Hezbollah from building up a military presence along the border, in violation of two decades of ceasefire agreements. The escalation comes as half a century of international efforts to maintain peace along the border face an uncertain future. UNIFIL’s mission is also set to end this year, with Donald Trump calling it a waste of money.

This is while the Israeli army announced in a statement to the AP that it is not conducting deterrent operations against UNIFIL forces and is working within the accepted framework to strike Hezbollah, which is mainly based in southern Lebanon. The statement said that the army “is taking measures to reduce the harm to UNIFIL forces and other international actors active in the region.”

Accordingly, UNIFIL announced in a statement that “the number of attacks on peacekeepers, as well as aggressive behavior towards them, has increased since September 2025,” and most of these incidents were attributed to the Israeli army. The UNIFIL statement said: “Most incidents do not involve physical harm to peacekeepers, but any action that disrupts our mandated activities is of concern.”

Of course, this is not the whole story, and UN forces have also reported other incidents this year. The force said an Israeli tank opened fire with small-caliber rounds on a UN peacekeeping post on January 16. It also reported this week that a drone had dropped a sound grenade that exploded near a peacekeeper patrol and then flew into Israeli territory.

The report, obtained by The AP, details several incidents of Israeli drones dropping grenades near UNIFIL patrols in 2025, including an attack in October that wounded a peacekeeper, and machine gun fire near UNIFIL positions. In some cases, UNIFIL vehicles were damaged.

The report makes the crucial point that the last four months of 2025 have seen an increase in incidents of direct fire from Israeli positions on both sides of the Blue Line at all targets. The report also added that such incidents increased to 77 in December, compared to just two in January.

The incidents and incidents have occurred in a context where vehicles and positions of the United Nations peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) are clearly marked as UN equipment, and Hezbollah fighters have not been present or fired at Israeli forces in recent months.

Israel uses these incidents to maintain its military presence north of the border and prevent the return of people who have fled the area.

The UN peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) was formed almost five decades ago to monitor the withdrawal of Israel from southern Lebanon after its forces invaded in 1978. But the UN Security Council voted last August to end its mission at the end of 2026.

Finally, Israel had long sought to end its mission, saying UNIFIL had failed to keep Lebanese Hezbollah away from the border. Under the 2006 UN ceasefire, the Lebanese army, with UNIFIL support, was supposed to maintain security in the south.