State Department: UN Resolution 1701 only way to end war with Hezbollah

(JNS) — The United States considers the implementation of the 18-year-old U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 to be the only way to end the war between Israel and the Hezbollah terror organization, Vedant Patel, the principal deputy U.S. State Department spokesman, said at the Foggy Bottom press briefing on Tuesday.

“I know that there’s been a lot of interest in 1701 over the past couple of days and perhaps a little bit of misunderstanding in how—or misinterpretation in how it’s being discussed,” Patel said. “So let me just be unequivocally clear. We—what we want to see is the effective implementation of 1701.”

“We think that it is vital, and it can help create the conditions that will ultimately allow civilians on both sides of the Blue Line to return home,” he added.

The U.N. resolution calls for Hezbollah to disarm and leave Southern Lebanon, and for the Lebanese army and the U.N. Interim Force In Lebanon to secure the area.

Addressing a U.N. Security Council briefing on the Middle East on Oct. 2, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the global body, stated that “for nearly a year, Israel has repeatedly called for the full implementation of Resolution 1701.”

“Even as Hezbollah’s attacks along the Israel-Lebanese border have displaced Lebanese people, and even as Hezbollah has blocked Lebanon’s government from exercising full sovereignty on its side of the Blue Line,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “It is significant that even in the aftermath of recent events, Israel is still calling for the full implementation of Resolution 1701.”

Israel has also charged that UNFIL has allowed Hezbollah to construct tunnels and store weapons within plain sight of the U.N. force.

“For 18 years, Hezbollah brazenly refused to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which requires it to move its forces away from our borders,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address to the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 27. “Instead, Hezbollah moved right up to our border. They secretly dug terror tunnels to infiltrate our communities and indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets into our towns and villages.”

“They fire these rockets and missiles not from military sites—they do that, too—but they fire those rockets and missiles after they place them in schools, in hospitals, in apartment buildings and in the private homes of the citizens of Lebanon,” Netanyahu said. “They endanger their own people. They put a missile in every kitchen. A rocket in every garage.”

“I said to the people of Lebanon this week: Get out of the death trap that Hezbollah has put you in,” he added.

On Oct. 14, Netanyahu stated that it was “completely false” that Israel had intentionally attacked UNIFIL forces.

“It’s exactly the opposite. Israel repeatedly asked 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 at the time. “In fact, on the day that Israel began its ground operation next to our border with Lebanon, we asked them specifically, ‘Please leave this area so you’re not harmed.’”

The Jewish state is fighting the Hezbollah terror organization, not UNFIL nor the Lebanese people, Netanyahu stressed.

“Hezbollah uses UNIFIL facilities and positions as cover while it attacks Israeli cities and communities. These attacks have claimed the lives of many Israelis,” he said. “Israel has every right to defend itself against Hezbollah and will continue to do so. We regret any harm done to UNIFIL personnel, and the IDF is doing its utmost to prevent such incidents. But the best way to assure the safety of UNIFIL personnel is for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s request and to temporarily get out of harm’s way.”

Speaking at the State Department press briefing on Tuesday, Patel said that “ultimately what we want to see here is conditions that will allow civilians to be able to return home and, beyond that, get the government and country of Lebanon to a place where it is out of the stranglehold of Hezbollah and able to stand on its own two feet, be in a place where it can select a new president.”