BICOM

The UN Security Council (UNSC) yesterday unanimously adopted a US-Russian sponsored resolution to extend the mandate of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the buffer zone on the Israeli-Syrian border, until the end of 2017.

The vote for UNSC Resolution 2361 followed four days of stray mortar shells falling on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights after intense fighting between the Syrian regime and rebels in Syria.

The UN Security Council resolution strongly condemned the use of heavy weapons, including tanks, by both the Syrian armed forces and armed groups, and backed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s findings that ongoing military activities in the buffer zone have the potential to jeopardise the ceasefire between Israel and Syria and risk harm to civilians and UN personnel in the area.

The resolution underscored “the need for UNDOF to have at its disposal all necessary means and resources to carry out its mandate safely and securely,” including the use of “technology and equipment to enhance its observation of the area of separation and the ceasefire line, and to improve force protection”. The UNSC further urged Secretary-General Gutteres “to accelerate the development of proposals for such technologies”.

UNDOF has patrolled the buffer zone between Israel and Syria since 1974. For nearly four decades the peacekeeping mission has maintained stability between the two countries by monitoring troop movements and other activities. In 2013, Austria removed its contingent as a result of the fighting in the Syrian civil war and the presence of Islamist terror groups, and in 2014 the UN removed the force after UNDOF soldiers were kidnapped on three occasions, only to return in November 2016.

According to the UN peacekeeping department, UNDOF currently has 959 personnel including 828 military officers.