Strxwmxn@strxwmxn
Not sure if you know this, Martina, but for nearly 5 decades the UN has promised Israel that southern Lebanon would be kept free of terror orgs (PLO then, Hezbollah now) threatening northern Israel. That promise has been repeatedly broken.
UN Resolution 425 was passed in 1978 after the PLO attacked civilians in northern Israel and deployed UNIFIL to secure the area south of the Litani River. The PLO returned under UNIFIL's watch and kept attacking northern Israel.
In 2006, after a devastating war that Hezbollah started, the UN passed Resolution 1701 explicitly demanding Hezbollah withdraw north of the Litani River, which the Lebanese government even signed onto. Hezbollah ignored all of it and over the next two decades built thousands of rocket positions, tunnels, and bunkers right under UNIFIL's nose. UNIFIL did nothing. Lebanon did nothing. The UN documented the violations and did nothing.
Hezbollah started attacking Israel on October 8, 2023 and for two years kept launching rockets, paralyzing all of northern Israel, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis (many of them Arab and Druze) seeking shelter, and turning cities like Metula and Kiryat Shmona into ghost towns.
At the end of 2024, another ceasefire agreement made the same demand for Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani river. Hezbollah violated it again, joining the Iran War.
Multiple guarantees. Multiple violations. All by these terror orgs. And Israeli civilians paid the price.
Israel has had enough: neither the Lebanese government nor the UN have the capability nor the will to enforce these commitments. Israel is now justly taking matters into their hands, and anyone who's clutching their pearls about it needs to explain exactly what it is Israel should do instead. Otherwise, they're being either willfully ignorant or dishonest.
