“Israel will stop its army and the UN will change its approach”

“Since before the war I have been saying that Unifil’s rules of engagement do not allow us to arrive at a solution that would not have started the current conflict. The message we send to Israel is: if you stop your army the UN can change the approach in that part of Lebanon to achieve in a peaceful way what you are trying to achieve in a military way by attacking Hezbollah bases.” Thus the Minister of Defense, Guido Crosetto, guest of Bruno Vespa on ‘Five minutes’. “Unifil’s rules of engagement – he explained – allow our soldiers to move only together with the Lebanese armed forces. The latter, however, have been totally destroyed by the economic crisis. The salary of a soldier is one twentieth of what it was a few years ago ago, so the Lebanese military chain was blown up and this also blocked the possibility for our military to move and implement the UN resolution which established that there should be no danger from Hezbollah for a 10 km border line between Lebanon and Israel”.