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By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Last week, during Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day of the year, Hezbollah fired another barrage of rockets into Israel from its southern Lebanon stronghold. One million Israelis rushed into bomb shelters to wait out the intermittent but heavy attacks. A day later, an Iranian drone armed with a missile crashed into the roof of an IDF dining room south of Haifa—murdering four Golani Brigade soldiers and injuring dozens more. Israel’s defensive war has resulted in yet another level of intense anguish for its beleaguered people.

Early on, Israel discovered how Hamas used UNWRA (TheUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) as a cover for terror. Now, with Israel’s fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, compelling evidence is also emerging about UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), the so-called “peacekeeping” force. It seems that the Islamic Regime’s twin terror proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, have repurposed the United Nations’ roles in UNRWA and UNIFIL as tools of hate against Jews and their homeland.

Because of Iran’s backing and support, Hezbollah is the most well-armed terrorist organization in the world. They use UNIFIL soldiers as well as men, women, and children as human shields in yet another violation of international law. (Consider how that practice contrasts with Israel’s policy of protecting civilians.) Right beside UNIFIL soldiers, Hezbollah built bunkers and tunnels designed solely for attacks and invasions into Israel. UNIFIL ignored these deadly projects in total violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, intended to resolve the 2006 Lebanon War by withdrawing Israeli forces and disarming armed groups—including Hezbollah.

Sound familiar?

Acclaimed author and journalist Douglas Murray, embedded in Gaza with the IDF and now in southern Lebanon, reports his eye-opening firsthand experiences: “How is it possible that the kind of heavy digging needed to create these tunnels could have happened literally right under the noses of the UN? Were they not looking? Did they even care?”

They decided not to look, Murray says, “The international peacekeeping force has been a joke for years.”

As the Israel Defense Forces have sought to destroy the Iran-financed arsenals, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has broadcast a strong message to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “The time has come to remove UNIFIL from Hezbollah’s strongholds and war zones.” Guterres’s repeated refusals have resulted in Hezbollah using UNIFIL as human shields. “Your refusal to evacuate UNIFIL soldiers,” emphasizedNetanyahu, “turns them into Hezbollah’s hostages. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers.”

Thus far, UNIFIL soldiers have been injured during the fighting. Netanyahu assures Guterres that Israel is intent on preventing harm but directly challenges the secretary–general, “Remove them [the UNIFIL soldiers] from the area. This needs to be done immediately, now.” We must understand that leaving UNIFIL in place means more injuries and deaths among these (supposed) peacekeepers and gives the biased United Nations more reasons to blame Israel.

Israel’s defensive measures are exposing the moral corruption of two misguided United Nations programs: UNWRA and UNIFIL. They have grown into diseased operations undermining Israel under the purview of the United Nations, including the UN Security Council. Ten percent of UNWRA’s staff were affiliated with Hamas, and on October 7, 2023, according to a Telegram channel, 3,000 UNRWA staff celebrated Hamas’s massacres. The Biden administration rightly canceled U.S. tax dollars funding UNRWA; the U.S. had been its biggest donor.

Most of us are familiar with Hamas and UNRWA by now. However, why is UNIFIL stationed in southern Lebanon with a contingent of 10,000 soldiers from 50 countries?

In 2006, the UN Security Council voted on Resolution 1701 to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon for a permanent ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel after the Second Lebanon War. UNIFIL was tasked with monitoring southern Lebanon, especially along the almost 70 miles of the Lebanon/Israel “border.” Called the Blue Line, it is not a border; it is only a temporary “line of withdrawal” set by the UN.

UNIFIL “peacekeepers” were intended to be temporary overseers to enforce these lofty ideas, noting that any crossing of the Blue Line violated UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Significantly, they were assigned to prevent any “sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon.” However, Hezbollah has made sure that UNIFIL completely failed. During a period of more than 20 years, Iran shipped billions of dollars’ worth of weapons into southern Lebanon by land, sea, and air.

You may wonder why Israel is now warning civilians to leave their homes in southern Lebanon. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett informs us: “Many Shiites in Lebanon have a unique revenue stream: In their home they have a special ‘Rocket Launcher Room.’ They’re paid monthly rent by Hezbollah to host this launcher and be prepared to shoot rockets at Israel communities on demand.”

Bennett goes on to express his astonishment while serving as a company commander fighting Hezbollah in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. “Who the heck turns their home into a terror base? The IDF is now systematically destroying these death machines. Any man who turns his home into a death launch pad puts his family in severe danger, and only he is responsible for the consequences. Enough is enough!”

Estimates for missiles and rockets range from 40,000-120,000. Professor Andreas Krieg at King’s College London warns that, although the IDF has destroyed many short- and mid-range missiles, “The crown jewels of its [Hezbollah’s] missile capability are not stored overground but underground.” Larger missiles with bigger warheads and longer range put Israel in greater danger, and Krieg adds that “the damage in Israel will be so considerable that there is no stepping back from the abyss anymore.”

Use his quote as a prompt for our prayers and faith, referring to Isaiah 9:7, where God assures Israel’s future no matter what is happening today: “Of the greatness of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over His kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.”

Resolution 1701 makes us wonder: is the United Nations a direct accomplice for UNRWA and UNIFIL—not simply to repeatedly verbalize accusations of Israel as the only problem in the Middle East? Moreover, are they so morally corrupt that they not only allow but support Jew hatred with rampant violence against the world’s only Jewish state?

Furthermore, how strong is the Islamic Regime’s hold on the UN? Why are Iran’s presidents—currently Masoud Pezeshkian—welcomed each year to the UN General Assembly? Why is Pezeshkian allowed to freely come and go in New York City while the Ayatollahs endanger former President Trump’s and others’ lives with illegal gangs of Iranians welcomed into our nation’s southern border? It is long past time for the United Nations to abandon its toxic bias. Might the USA invite the UN to leave our country?

Most of the United Nations is a hornet’s nest of evil that enables the Shia Islamic Regime to press on and resurrect a modern caliphate. The Ayatollah’s apocalyptic goal is to rule the world with impunity like they oppress their own population now. They will not stop until they are stopped.

Those of us who are grateful to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus also owe a debt of gratitude for God’s people and His land defending themselves and all freedom-loving people.

Our CBN Israel team welcomes you to join us in prayer this week, trusting God’s intervention on behalf of His chosen people by remembering Isaiah 49:16: “See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me.”

Prayer Points:

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide.  In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.