U.N. deputy secretary-general says Lebanon cease-fire is holding, for now
‘It’s holding as fast as it can,’ despite breaches on both sides, Amina Mohammed says at Aspen Security Forum
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United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said on Wednesday that she believes the cease-fire agreement in Lebanon is holding, in spite of continued Hezbollah attacks and attempted attacks on Israel, which have prompted Israeli strikes.
“It’s holding as fast as it can,” Mohammed said at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington, D.C., and is “successful so far,” in spite of what she described as breaches on both sides. “We keep holding onto our seats for that,” she continued.
Pressed by moderator Alex Marquard of CNN on how the situation would be different now than in the past, given the U.N. and its peacekeeping force UNIFIL’s nearly two-decade failure to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 mandating Hezbollah’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and disarmament, Mohammed provided few specifics.
“What’s different I think is Gaza and how this spilled over into Lebanon,” she said. “We will have to come back and look at how we implement 1701, and hopefully we can do that in a much more constructive way. I think UNIFIL has done the best that it possibly can under the circumstances.”
She said that member states will have to address the weaknesses in UNIFIL’s enforcement mechanisms and capacity.
The deputy secretary-general insisted that the U.N. has investigated all claims of impropriety against the U.N. Relief and Works Agency and held those responsible to account, while calling the agency “indispensable” to the Palestinian people and “their hope.”
She expressed concern about the upcoming enforcement of a new Israeli law banning UNRWA operations inside Israel, and said the U.N. is pressing Israel to rescind it.
Despite the incoming Trump administration’s well-documented opposition to UNRWA, Mohammed said she remains hopeful that U.N. leaders can change President-elect Donald Trump’s view on the issue.
More broadly, Mohammed expressed optimism that the U.N. — which Trump has often derided — could maintain a productive relationship with his administration, saying that “we were not in a bad place in the last term” but “it will be tough.”
She said, though, that she was “very concerned” about the prospect of the U.S. pulling funding from the U.N. entirely, a move pushed by House Republicans in recent years.
Mohammed also brushed off accusations from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N., that the U.N. is antisemitic, insisting that the U.N. is simply seeking to enforce international law and U.N. agreements and resolutions.
She did not address, and was not asked about, the U.N.’s comparative failure to address a host of humanitarian issues across the globe in contrast with its disproportionate focus on Israel.
Mohammed blamed a host of issues for humanitarian aid shortages in Gaza, including the pace of Israeli inspections, a lack of deconfliction mechanisms, insufficient quantities of aid being provided and looting inside Gaza.
Israeli officials have said they are allowing sufficient flows of aid into Gaza but U.N. teams are not collecting and distributing it.
Mohammed said that the U.N. is bringing “as much aid as we can to these crossings… but it takes extraordinary amounts of effort to get it across” or it’s stolen quickly after entering Gaza. She said it’s “unfair” to suggest that the U.N. is not bringing sufficient aid to crossings into Gaza.