United Nations peacekeepers are determined to remain at their posts in southern Lebanon despite Israeli attacks in recent days and orders by Israel's advancing military to leave, the force's spokesperson said on Thursday.
Andrea Tenenti said the Israeli attacks on the peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, on Wednesday and Thursday had wounded two of their members and knocked out some of their monitoring capabilities.
"Definitely, this is probably one of the most serious events or incidents that we've been witnessing in the last 12 months," Tenenti said in an interview, referring to exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
The force's 50 contributing countries had agreed on Thursday to keep deploying more than 10,400 peacekeepers between the Litani River in the north and the U.N.-recognized boundary between Lebanon and Israel known as the Blue Line in the south.
"We are there because the (U.N.) Security Council has asked us to be there. So we are staying until the situation becomes impossible for us to operate," Tenenti added.