French Special Presidential Envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian called on Lebanon to “implement” U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 by “ending the presence of armed militias within a 30-kilometer-deep area so that it serves as a buffer zone,” Lebanese media reported on Friday.
Le Drian warned: “If Lebanon does not comply, the international community might resort to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter so that the U.N. forces become “more effective in their military jurisdiction”, the reports added.
Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council‘s powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and to take military and nonmilitary action to “restore international peace and security”.
Chapter VII also gives the Military Staff Committee responsibility for the strategic coordination of forces placed at the disposal of the UN Security Council. Any military action performed through land, air, and sea forces is specifically allowed (UN Charter Article 42). Such action could entail troop deployment, the enforcement of a no-fly zone, or even the use of aerial bombardment.
“International pressure on Lebanon will intensify as time passes to rearrange the situations in the border area”, the reports added
Le Drian’s warning comes after Israeli shelling killed three people in southern Lebanon after the truce between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas ended, prompting a resumption of hostilities at the Israel-Lebanon border.
The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, said one of its fighters was among those killed on Friday.
Hezbollah, which reportedly should not be at any place near the border, according to the 1701 resolution said it had carried out several attacks on Israeli military positions at the border in support of Palestinians in Gaza, where a weeklong pause in the fighting ended early in the day.
” The Lebanese army is the only force allowed to operate along the border according to 1701, but since Hezbollah is much more powerful than the Lebanese army it hijacked Lebanon’s war and peace decisions,” a Lebanese analyst told Ya Liban
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