The Israeli envoy to the global body told Lebanese citizens that they and their government
can confront Hezbollah “or watch as your country is dragged into chaos and destruction.”

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday, August 27 to extend the mandate of UNIFIL, its peacekeeping mission along the Israel-Lebanon border, for another year.

The short resolution reaffirms the council’s commitment to Resolution 1701, a document crafted at the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 that in part disbands and disarms militias like Hezbollah, which controls Southern Lebanon and operates outside of the government’s official armed forces. The resolution ratified on Tuesday calls for an end to hostilities in the area.

Washington was able to thwart the resolution making a “demand” for an end to violence, based on its view that Israel should be free, to the extent possible, to neutralize Hezbollah, per JNS sources with extensive knowledge of the discussions.

The resolution, which includes no major changes from last year’s document, stresses “the importance of and the need to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

The international force, which numbers more than 10,000, patrols the area near the demarcated Blue Line—Israel’s line of withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 which was never explicitly meant to serve as a final border—and northward. UNIFIL also serves as a hotline between Israel and Hezbollah in particularly tense times.

Multiple diplomatic sources told JNS that the council rejected a U.S. effort to link the renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate to a U.S. initiative to move Jerusalem and Beirut into negotiations to settle their territorial disputes. No such language appears in Tuesday’s resolution.

Washington also came up short in gaining the council’s explicit condemnation of Hezbollah incorporated into the resolution, the senior diplomats said.

Before the vote, Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters that he had a message for the Lebanese people.

“You and your government have a choice to make: Confront Hezbollah today or watch as your country is dragged into chaos and destruction,” Danon said. “The time for action is now.”

The Israeli envoy urged the Lebanese to “not let Hezbollah and Iran dictate your future,” stressing that Israel doesn’t seek war but “will not hesitate to defend our people.”

“We will not tolerate Hezbollah firing rockets at our citizens,” he said.