Southern Lebanon: Israel’s army says it found Hezbollah weapons 100 metres from a UN position – UNIFIL’s answer

The Israeli army said on Sunday, November 8, that it had found two weapons caches and an apartment that, it claims, Hezbollah used for military purposes, 100 to 250 metres from UN positions in southern Lebanon. In the same statement it openly accused the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) of failing in its mission. UNIFIL’s answer came on Monday, November 9: its mandate does not include searches of private property or forcible disarmament. The Israeli claims have not been independently verified.

The findings, as presented in the statement the Israeli army posted on Telegram, come from operations of the 91st Division inside what Israel calls the “Security Zone.” The 9th “Oded” Brigade searched the Meiss al-Jabal area and found two weapon sites: one inside a civilian house, about 200 metres from a UN position, and one in a storage space just 100 metres from another. The Israeli side lists Kalashnikov rifles, RPG launchers with rockets, a PK machine gun, fragmentation grenades, an explosive device, ammunition and communications and surveillance equipment. Next to them, it adds, were boxes of humanitarian aid and Amal and Hezbollah symbols.

In the area of Et-Tiri, the Kfir Brigade found an apartment about 250 metres from a UN position, with surveillance equipment, combat gear, supplies for a stay and Hezbollah symbols. Videos, photographs and a diagram of the distances were released with it. On Thursday, November 5, the Israeli army had published another find in the south, with more than 340 Hezbollah weapons and a shaft inside a house.

The Israeli statement calls the findings “yet more proof” that UNIFIL has failed, and speaks of a “cynical exploitation” of its “inaction” by armed organisations. It also states that the army remains committed to the ceasefire agreement.

What UNIFIL answers

UNIFIL spokeswoman Kandice Ardiel replied in remarks to the United Arab Emirates-based website Al-Ain News. Responsibility for implementing Security Council resolution 1701, she stressed, lies with the two parties, Lebanon and Israel, each on its own territory. The presence of unauthorised weapons and armed persons south of the Litani River is a flagrant violation of the resolution, but the force’s mandate does not give it the right to search private property or forcibly disarm Hezbollah or any other armed group. Illegal weapons, she said, will go only with full implementation of 1701 and the extension of the Lebanese state’s authority over the whole south, together with the deployment of the Lebanese army.

Ms Ardiel recalled that the peacekeepers had detected suspicious activity and worrying sites even before October 2023. “We reported every activity or infrastructure that concerned us when we found it and asked the Lebanese authorities to facilitate our access to suspicious sites. That access was not always given in time,” she said. The incidents, she added, have reached the Security Council.

The dispute erupts a few weeks before the end of the mission. UNIFIL’s mandate expires on December 31, 2026, followed by the reduction and withdrawal of the roughly 7,500 peacekeepers from about 50 countries deployed between the Litani and the Blue Line. The mission’s history is traced in our UNIFIL timeline from 1978 to the end of the mandate.