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Israel Says Hezbollah Using UN Troops in Lebanon as Human Shields as UNIFIL Refuses to Leave Combat Zones
UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, southern Lebanon, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher
United Nations peacekeepers will stay in all positions in Lebanon despite Israeli warnings that Hezbollah is weaponizing their presence in the Iran-backed terrorist organization’s war against the Jewish state.
“The decision was made that UNIFIL [the UN Interim Force in Lebanon] would currently stay in all its positions in spite of the calls that were made by the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] to vacate the positions that are in the vicinity of the Blue Line,” UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said on Monday.
Lacroix’s announcement came after Italy, Britain, France, and Germany earlier in the day condemned what they described as Israeli attacks on the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, calling them violations of international humanitarian law and demanding an immediate halt.
In a joint statement, the nations emphasized the “essential stabilizing role” of UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah wields significant influence and has been fighting Israeli forces, and urged Israel to guarantee the peacekeepers’ safety.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forcefully rejected accusations that Israel deliberately attacked UNIFIL personnel as “completely false.”
“It’s exactly the opposite. Israel repeatedly asks UNIFIL to get out of harm’s way. It repeatedly asked them to temporarily leave the combat zone, which is right next to Israel’s border with Lebanon,” he said.
UNIFIL appeared to rebuff Netanyahu’s calls to evacuate with Lacroix’s latest statement. However, the Israeli premier hasn’t been the only one warning of how Hezbollah was using the UN presence in Lebanon to its advantage.
Lieutenant Colonel (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, a resident of northern Israel and the founder and director of Alma — a research center that focuses on security challenges relating to Israel’s northern border — said that Hezbollah was using UNIFIL troops as human shields.
“UNIFIL troops are deemed non-combatants like the rest of the Lebanese population, and not an enemy. Every commander in the IDF knows this,” Zehavi told The Algemeiner.
Israel’s one mistake, she said, was agreeing in the aftermath of the 2006 Second Lebanon War to the deployment of 10,000 UNIFIL troops in southern Lebanon.
“It’s outrageous that UNIFIL is not enabling us to do what it was supposed to do in the past 18 years,” she said. “They are risking their lives for nothing. I hope they’ll come to their senses and withdraw, as requested.”
Israel has asked that the peacekeepers retreat five kilometers, or 3.1, miles north of the border, to stay out of the line of fire.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon on Sunday echoed similar sentiments.
“Hezbollah terrorists are using UNIFIL outposts as hiding places and as places of ambushes. The UN’s insistence on keeping the UNIFIL soldiers in the line of fire is incomprehensible,” said Danon.
The Lebanese terrorist group has launched more than 10,000 rockets into Israel since Oct. 8 of last year, a day after Hamas’s attack in Israel’s south, including more than 1,000 UAVs, one of which killed four Israelis on Sunday and wounded 70 more.
“For 18 years, UNIFIL personnel ignored the Hezbollah bases along the border and did not report any UN Resolution 1701 violations, which states that only the Lebanese army is allowed to operate in the area,” Danon said.
A UNIFIL report released on Monday about IDF incursions in the area raised concerns for Zehavi, who questioned the group’s effectiveness even as a monitoring entity. The report notably omitted any mention of the munitions and tunnels uncovered by the IDF just meters from UNIFIL posts.
“In almost every home that is in open areas, and under every tree, the IDF finds munitions,” she said. “It is clear that UNIFIL knew what was happening.”
Zehavi said that much of the problems arose when examining UN Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 after the Second Lebanon War, which mandated a buffer zone free of armed groups and to prevent the area from being used for hostile activities. She questioned the division of responsibility in two seemingly contradictory articles of the resolution between UNIFIL and the Lebanese army in securing the area between Israel’s border and the Litani River.
“Who’s to ensure that this area is not used for all these purposes by a terrorist organization? Is it UNIFIL or the Lebanese army?” Zehavi asked, adding that at this point, “it doesn’t really matter.”
“Neither of them implemented the mandate, and from day one, Hezbollah deceived the whole world and continued rebuilding its terrorist activity in southern Lebanon,” she explained.
In the future, UNIFIL’s mandate should be limited to serving as mediator and capped at 1,000 personnel, Zehavi said. But she also called for another coalition to enter southern Lebanon, one that would be “willing to clash with Hezbollah.”
The key issue, Zehavi said, is that it’s impossible to fully implement UN Resolution 1701 as long as Hezbollah is not seen as an “illegitimate entity” within Lebanon. She argued that while Hezbollah operates both as a political party in Lebanon’s Parliament and government and as a massive social movement, the terrorist group essentially functions as a “state within a state,” with parallel civilian infrastructures that provide services to the population, thereby securing widespread support.
Despite the IDF’s successes in targeting Hezbollah’s munitions and rocket depots, Alma estimates that Hezbollah still retains around 50,000 mortars with ranges of up to 10 kilometers. Additionally, there are about 25,000 Grads and other mid-range rockets capable of reaching distances between 30 to 80 kilometers. For longer ranges of 80 to 200 kilometers, Hezbollah is believed to have around 2,000 rockets. However, Zehavi acknowledged that there are no current estimates for how many long-range missiles Hezbollah may still have in its arsenal.
Zehavi outlined four types of tunnels built by Hezbollah, each serving a specific function. The first type, border crossing tunnels, are meant to infiltrate Israel, with a recently discovered tunnel extending just a few dozen meters from Lebanon into the Israeli community of Zarit. Its opening shaft was discovered only dozens of meters away from a UNIFIL watchtower.
The second type is tactical tunnels, which link homes and strategic points in southern Lebanon. These tunnels were originally designed to facilitate Hezbollah’s invasion plans and defend against IDF incursions. Hezbollah’s plan to invade Israel — which included abductions — was “copy-pasted” by Hamas, she said.
In practice, since Hezbollah shelved plans for an invasion, the terrorist group has mainly used those tunnels to avoid direct combat, instead attacking from a distance with anti-tank missiles and mortars.
The third type, known as strategic tunnels, form a vast network stretching hundreds of kilometers, and are supported by Iran and North Korea. These tunnels are used to transport launchers and military personnel across Lebanon, from Beirut to the south and from the Lebanese-Syrian border.
Lastly, explosive tunnels are specifically designed to target IDF forces, with the intent of causing significant damage as Israeli units advance.
Beyond the fighting in Lebanon, Zehavi also described Iran’s recent massive missile attack on Israel as a declaration of war and called on Israel and its allies to attack Iran’s nuclear program.
Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi held a secret meeting on Sunday night at the headquarters of the Military Intelligence Directorate near Tel Aviv to discuss the country’s planned retaliation against Iran, according to Ynet.
The last such secret meeting reportedly occurred right before the Israeli airstrike last month that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The post Israel Says Hezbollah Using UN Troops in Lebanon as Human Shields as UNIFIL Refuses to Leave Combat Zones first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘F—k the Jew, F—k the Zionist’: Former CAIR Director Launches Antisemitic Tirade in Manhattan
Noora Shalash confronting Jewish men in New York City. Photo: Screenshot
A former senior employee of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was caught on camera launching a profane and antisemitic tirade at Jewish men in New York City in a viral video posted to social media on Thursday.
Noora Shalash, who previously worked as the director of government affairs for CAIR’s Kentucky branch, was confronted by an individual in an office building after allegedly harassing a “visibly Jewish man.” After being grilled for her alleged conduct, Shalash then went on an antisemitic diatribe.
“F—k the Jew. F—k the Zionist,” Shalash said.
Shalash then said that she “loves Jesus” and claimed Jews “dishonor the Virgin Mary and call her a ‘whore.’” She also called the man recording the video a “b—ch” and swiped her hand at his cellphone. A security guard intervened and physically pulled Shalash away while she appeared to continue attempting to assault the man.
“This is what Jews have to deal with in New York City,” the man said.
Midtown Manhattan – crazed antisemite assaults a visible Jew and gets arrested.
“F*ck the Jew … f*ck the Zionists” she says confidently. pic.twitter.com/EdmTR2UzWg
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 7, 2025
The video, which was obtained and posted on X/Twitter by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism, quickly went viral on social media, gaining nearly 600,000 views within 16 hours.
CAIR National responded to the viral incident, claiming that Shalash had not been employed by the organization for five years and currently has “no other role at our civil rights group.”
“We condemn and reject the antisemitic comments in the video, just as we condemn and reject the anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Muslim hate,” the organization added.
A picture circulated on social media showing CAIR identifying Shalash as a senior official as of October 2020.
PHOTO: CAIR-KY met with #Kentucky Senate Pres Robert Stivers. Representing CAIR-KY were CAIR-KY Board members: Dr. Salah Shakir, Dr. Nadia Rasheed, Dr. Dina Rasheed, Noora Shalash (CAIR-KY Dir Gov Affairs) Sen. Reginald Thomas attended @kysenatepres @BGPolitics @tweet2waheedah pic.twitter.com/YtYGH7z8V3
— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 1, 2020
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, the organization was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
CAIR leaders have also found themselves embroiled in further controversy since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage of rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in what was the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago last November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
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New ‘Gaza Encampment’ Hits Bowdoin College
Anti-Zionist Bowdoin College students storming the Smith Union administrative building on the evening of February 6, 2025 to occupy it in protest of what they said are the college’s links to Israel. Photo: Screenshot
“Gaza Solidarity Encampments” returned to American higher education on Thursday with the capture and occupation of an administrative building at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine by the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
According to the Bowdoin Orient, the campus newspaper, SJP stormed Smith Union and installed its encampment on Thursday night in response to US President Donald Trump’s proposing that the US “take over” the Gaza Strip and transform it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism. The roughly 50 students residing inside the building have vowed not to leave until the Bowdoin officials agree to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
“President Trump’s recent statement suggests a potential endorsement on Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, a move that threatens the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people and undermines the prospect for a just and lasting peace,” SJP leader Yusur Jasmin said during a speech delivered to the students, who are breaking multiple school rules to hold the demonstration.
Following the action, Bowdoin officials promptly moved to deescalate the situation by counseling the students to mind the “gravity of situation” in which they placed themselves, with senior associate dean Katie Toro-Ferrari warning that their behavior “could put them on the path where they are jeopardizing their ability to remain as Bowdoin students.” However, the Orient said the students continued to flood Smith Union anyway. One student, Olivia Kenney, proclaimed that “Bowdoin does not know how to handle us right now.”
Bowdoin has not conceded the fight to gain control of Smith Union. On Friday, the Orient said it ordered security to declare the building closed for the day and to deny access to all who attempt to enter it, including Orient reporters seeking interviews with the occupiers. The directive has so far blocked entry to over a dozen students who approached its doors on Friday while chanting “This institution does not scare us. To the security, you do not scare us.” The school has also stated unequivocally that refusing to end the demonstration will prompt a “disciplinary process,” the paper added.
“The demonstration that began on our campus on Feb. 6 is in clear violation of our policies, and those students who are participating will be subject to the disciplinary process. Bowdoin’s priority is to ensure that all our students, faculty, and staff feel safe and welcome on campus,” Bowdoin College told The Algemeiner on Friday in a statement.
No college or university has seen the successful establishment of a “Gaza Solidarity Encampments,” since the conclusion of the spring semester of the 2023-2024 academic school year, when anti-Zionists across the US commandeered school property and vowed to maintain control of them until school officials agreed to boycott and divest from Israel, a measure they said would signal disapproval of Israel’s prosecution of its war to eradicate Hamas from Gaza. Several attempts to do so this academic year were undertaken at the University of California, Los Angeles and Sarah Lawrence College, as well as the University of Cambridge and Munich University in Europe, but those endeavors were short lived.
Bowdoin’s encampment, equipped with tents and provisions to support an extended stay inside Smith Union, seems to be modeled directly on those which emerged last year and could be just as difficult to uproot. Some schools, such as Stanford University, failed to negotiate an end their encampments for as many as 120 days. How Bowdoin moves forward will be an early example of how college officials plan to operate in new political and legal parameters set by Trump’s second administration, which has vowed to quell campus unrest.
On Friday the National Association of Scholars, which published in 2013 a groundbreaking study — titled, What Does Bowdoin Teach? — of scholar-activism at Bowdoin College and has been a vocal critic of the anti-Zionist campus movement, called on school officials to restore order and uphold “the core mission of liberal arts education.”
It continued, “We urge Bowdoin College to reaffirm its dedication to a balanced liberal arts education by maintaining an environment where academic inquiry prevails over political activism. By doing so, the college can uphold its responsibility to educate students who are well-equipped to engage thoughtfully and constructively in civic life.”
Bowdoin College is not the only higher education institution that has been convulsed by anti-Israel activity this semester.
Columbia University was a victim of infrastructural sabotage last month, when an extremist anti-Zionist group flooded the toilets of an academic building with concrete to mark the anniversary of an alleged killing of a Palestinian child. The targeted facilities were located on several floors of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), according to Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of the school, who addressed the matter, calling the behavior “deplorable, disruptive, and deeply unsettling, as our campus is a space we cherish for learning teaching, and working, and it will not be tolerated.”
Numerous reports indicate the attack may be the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia on Wednesday were shared with students.
Republicans in Washington, DC have said that such behavior “will no longer be tolerated in the Trump administration.” Meanwhile, the new president has enacted a slew of policies aimed at reining in disruptive and discriminatory behavior.
Continuing work started started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — Trump’s recent “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” The order also requires each government agency to write a report explaining how it can be of help in carrying out its enforcement. Another major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Trump Sanctions ICC, Blasts Court for Setting ‘Dangerous Precedent’ With Netanyahu Arrest Warrant
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump has issued an executive order imposing travel and economic sanctions against those who assist with International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations of American citizens or allies such as Israel.
Trump announced the executive order on Thursday, coinciding with the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant last year over his role in the Gaza war — to Washington, DC. Under the sanctions, ICC officials, employees, and agents, together with their immediate family members, will have their property and assets blocked and their access to the United States suspended.
“The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest,” the order reads. “This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States Government and our allies, including Israel.”
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
The ICC responded to Trump’s executive order with a forceful condemnation, stressing that the court produces “independent and impartial” work.
“The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” the ICC said.
European Council President Antonio Costa blasted the US move, writing that “sanctioning the ICC threatens the court’s independence and undermines the international criminal justice system as a whole.”
However, not all reactions to the executive order were negative. Israel commended Trump for his sanctions against the ICC.
“I strongly commend @POTUS President Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the so-called ‘international criminal court,’” wrote Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on X.
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