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U.N. Secretary General Highlights Israel-Syria Border Collapse Risks

by TheTower.org Staff |

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon warned Wednesday that spillover from Syria’s civil war is threatening the increasingly fragile four-decade ceasefire between Syria and Israel.

Observers are specifically raising alarms about the potential collapse of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) – the U.N. peacekeeping mission which has monitored the Golan Heights region between the two countries since 1974 – in the aftermath of an Austrian decision to withdraw its troops from the force. Vienna’s contribution of around 300 troops constituted nearly one-third of the entire mission.

Following Austria’s announcement, Ban Ki-moon said he was seeking hundreds of new troops from member countries, but he did not say if any volunteers had stepped forward:

“The situation has affected the Undof area of operation significantly,” Mr. Ban wrote in the report. “The ongoing military activities in the area of separation continue to have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic and to jeopardize the cease-fire between the two countries.”…

Because of Austria’s pullout, Mr. Ban wrote, the United Nations has approached other member states “in an effort to identify urgently additional contributions and new contributors to Undof,” but his report left unclear whether any volunteers had stepped forward. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia offered his country’s troops as replacements for the Austrians last week, but the agreement that created Undof specifies that none of the Security Council’s five permanent members, which include Russia, can participate.

Both sides in the Syrian conflict have directly threatened to attack Israel from across the border that the Jewish state shares with Syria. The Bashar al-Assad regime has given Palestinian terror groups a green light to launch attacks, and the regime’s Hezbollah allies have threatened to open a “new front” on the Golan.

Meanwhile jihadists battling the regime have also vowed to attack Israel. Israeli officials have indicated that they will not tolerate attacks on civilian and military targets originating from Syrian territory.

[Photo: Demonides / Wiki Commons]

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