UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council renewed for six months yesterday a peacekeeping mission in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights monitoring a decades-old truce between Israel and Syria that has been shaken by a spillover of violence from Syria’s civil war.
The unanimously agreed resolution stresses the need for the peacekeepers, who currently just carry handguns, to boost their protection. Diplomats said troops would likely now get equipment such as flak jackets, armoured vehicles and machine guns.
The United Nations also plans to increase the force, which is known as UNDOF and has been operating with about 900 troops, to its authorised strength of 1,250.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in a 1967 war, and the countries technically remain at war. Syrian troops are not allowed in an area of separation under a 1973 ceasefire formalised in 1974.
UNDOF monitors the area of separation, a narrow strip of land running 70km from Mount Hermon on the Lebanese border to the Yarmouk River frontier with Jordan.
The Security Council resolution “stresses the need to enhance the safety and security of UNDOF” and endorses recommendation of “further adjustments to the posture and operations of the mission, as well as to implement additional mitigation measures to enhance the self-defence capabilities.”
Peacekeepers have been caught in the middle of fighting between Syrian troops and rebels in the area of separation, which had been largely quiet since the ceasefire. Stray shells and bullets also have landed on the Israeli-controlled side and Israeli troops have fired into Syria in response.
Syria’s conflict that started more than two years ago has claimed abround 100,000 lives, according to UN estimates.
REUTERS
