The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Jean-Pierre Lacroix (DPO) - Press Conference
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45:24
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MP4
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2.9 GB
STORY: Critical minerals crunch - UNECE
TRT: 2’59”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH, NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 23 APRIL 2026, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
Speaker:
- Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations
- Exterior wide shot, United Nations flag flying.
- Wide shot of podium speakers at press briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations: “Unfortunately, yesterday, we learned with sadness the passing away of caporal-chef Anicet Girardin from France, a second French peacekeeper who died as a result of the incident on the 18th of April. And I think that is - those tragic incidents - and we have also many injured peacekeepers as a result of the various incidents that took place in UNIFIL.”
- Medium-wide, podium speakers, TV screen showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations: “And of course we wish all of them a speedy recovery. And of course, I reiterate my condolences to France and Indonesia and to the families of the deceased peacekeepers. That is again an illustration of the dangerous environment in which peacekeepers are operating, but I think it's important to highlight what they do and what the difference they make.”
- Wide, podium speakers, journalists.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations: “Our peacekeepers are really making a true difference and they're doing this against the backdrop of increasingly dangerous environment. You've seen that in UNIFIL alone and over the last couple of weeks we lost five peacekeepers, three peacekeepers from Indonesia, two from France.”
- Wide, journalists, participants.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations: “It's true that the headquarters, of UNIFIL Naqoura is now in an area where there is a presence of the Israel Defense Forces. That doesn't mean that UNIFIL is not able to, move and operate, even within limits and constraints. Those limits have somewhat loosened up since the beginning of this what I call the relative ceasefire, not full, but still better than during these active hostilities over the past couple of weeks.”
- Medium, journalist.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations: “We currently have, around 80,000 civilians that have remained south of the river. Some civilians - actually more than some - are willing to return. It's going to be challenging to them. They will need support. UNIFIL has recently stepped up its activity in support of humanitarian assistance.”
- Wide, Press room, podium speakers.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations: “Obviously, again, the presence of the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanese territory is a violation of resolution 1701 and of course we hope that that presence, will eventually, be, terminated.”
- Medium, journalist.
Peacekeeping chief pays tribute to fallen ‘blue helmets’ in Lebanon
The continued support of UN Member States to Lebanon will be “indispensable” to boost the country’s national armed forces and provide humanitarian assistance with more than one million people still uprooted by the Middle East war, the UN's peacekeeping chief said on Wednesday.
“Israel will have to do what it takes to create the space and the political and practical and security conditions for that to happen,” said Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, speaking in Geneva.
In an update on the situation in Lebanon where a fragile ceasefire with Israel beginning 16 April is holding, the UN top diplomat noted that some 80,000 civilians have remained south of the Litani River despite widespread airstrikes and evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military.
Many civilians have already headed back to the south, despite the dangers and difficulties of crossing bombed bridges. “It's going to be challenging to them, they will need support. UNIFIL has recently stepped up its activity in support of humanitarian assistance,” the peacekeeping chief said.
He noted that the continued presence of the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanese territory “is a violation of resolution 1701” - the Security Council text adopted in 2006 calling for Israeli forces to exit southern Lebanon and a total end to hostilities by Hezbollah fighters and Israel.
Mr. Lacroix also paid tribute to the five UNIFIL peacekeepers killed in the south in recent days, three from Indonesia and two from France.
The death of French caporal-chef Anicet Girardin, 31, was announced on Wednesday. It follows an attack on a UNIFIL convoy which came under fire on 18 April while clearing a road in southern Lebanon to re-establish access to isolated UNIFIL positions. An initial UN assessment found that the peacekeepers came under fire from non-state armed groups, presumably Hezbollah.
“I reiterate my condolences to France and Indonesia and to the families of the deceased peacekeepers,” he said, insisting that “our peacekeepers are really making a true difference and they're doing this against the backdrop of an increasingly dangerous environment”.
The situation for the UN’s peacekeepers in southern Lebanon remains uncertain, but it has improved since the force’s headquarters at Naqoura was hit in late March by “a non-state actor”, amid intense Israeli exchanges of fire with Hezbollah fighters.
“The headquarters, of UNIFIL Naqoura is now in an area where there is a presence of the Israel Defense Forces. That doesn't mean that UNIFIL is not able to move and operate, even within limits and constraints,” Mr. Lacroix said. “Those limits have somewhat loosened up since the beginning of this what I call the relative ceasefire, not full, but still better than during these active hostilities over the past couple of weeks.”
ends
Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
Welcome to this press conference at the UN in Geneva.
Today I have the great pleasure and the great honour to have with us the Under Secretary General for Peace Operations, Mr Jean Pierre Lacroix.
I don't think we need to introduce you USG Lacroix.
He will give you an initial, initial remarks on the on an update on the UN peacekeeping and mine action work and then we will take questions.
Mercy, thank you very much and very good afternoon to all of you.
First of all, I will talk about mine action, because what brought me to Geneva was mine action in my capacity of Under Secretary General for Peace Operation.
I will, I also cover the UN Mine Action Service and to yesterday and today in Geneva we have an event which is called the National Directors Meeting, which is essentially a annual meeting of senior officials from Member States who are responsible for supporting mine action.
So it's a very important event for us.
It also brings together different stakeholders in the area of mine action, non governmental organisation, agency funds and programmes from the UN.
And we work together to do our best to act in response to the scourge of mine action, the improvised explosive devices, remnants of war.
We have a reality which is sobering, where, you know, the the propagation of mines and IDs and EODS has increased just in Afghanistan alone.
[Other language spoken]
This is a country where we have a project.
One person is killed on average every day by mine and that person is most likely to be a child.
And, and we have a total, an average of 4000 people killed every every year and and many more injured.
And again, most of these would be children.
And the needs are increasing as a result of the hostilities in Gaza and Ukraine, in the Sudan, we are seeing again an increased propagation of those devices and and therefore we are duty bound to see how we can respond to these challenges.
At the same time, the resources are limited.
We are operating against the backdrop where the financial constraints of our Member States and are real and, and all of this on mine action is done on the basis of voluntary contribution.
So you can imagine that it is something that is very, very important to us.
It's a collective work with, again, the other partners within the United Nations system, many of those agencies actually having their headquarters here in Geneva and also with the NGOs and and of course, our Member States.
Just to say that on mine action, we've been very active lately.
Turning to peacekeeping, I just want to say that our peacekeepers are really making a true difference.
And they're doing this against the backdrop of increasingly dangerous environment.
You've seen that in Unifier alone.
And over the last couple of weeks we lost 5 peacekeepers, 3 peacekeepers from Indonesia, 2 from French.
Unfortunately, yesterday we learned with sadness the passing away of Capal chef Anide Anise Giaza from France, the second French peacekeeper who died as a result of the incident on the 18th of April.
And I think that is those tragic incident that we have also many injured peacekeepers as a result of the various incident that took place in Unifield.
Of course, we wish all of them a speedy recovery.
And I of course, reiterate my condolences to France and Indonesia and and to the families of the deceased peacekeepers.
That is again an illustration of the dangerous environment in which peacekeepers are operating, but I think it's important to highlight what they do and what the difference they make.
I'm just coming from Cyprus, where for 50 years now peacekeepers from Hunt Fisit has been successfully implementing their mandate, which is to make sure that the ceasefire in the in the island will be kept.
And that is exactly what is happening against the backdrop of incidents that are occurring on a regular basis, sometime every single day, sometime every week.
And those incidents, all of them have the potential to escalate.
And if they do escalate, then potentially violence could resume.
And of course, any chance for political negotiation to proceed and succeed would be undermined.
So that's one example.
Another example is protection of civilians.
Every single, they are peacekeepers, protect hundreds of thousands of civilians.
And I've seen that very clearly, very directly.
For example, in the province of Ituri, northern E, northeast of the DR Congo, we, we have 10s of camps for internally displaced person.
Some of them have 6050, sixty, 70,000 civilians protected, protected exclusively by our peacekeepers who would not only protect them from security threat, but also allow access for humanitarian assistance.
So we have our challenges, but I wanted to highlight the the difference, the added value of our peacekeepers.
The challenges are political because we have a divided international community.
[Other language spoken]
That doesn't help us and that doesn't help the political efforts that we support through peacekeeping.
We have operational challenges with the increasingly dangerous security environment with MIS and disinformation and new forms of threats empowered by new technology.
And of course we have a financial challenge as a result of diminishing budget and and partial or non payment of all the assessed contribution have to be paid by member state to peacekeeping.
So I think I will leave it at that.
That was by way of introduction, but I want to end by really paying tribute to our peacekeepers on the ground and you know, whether there are civilian, military or police and, and also to the other other partners with whom they work.
We're in Geneva again, many agencies having their head water here.
We work very well with them day in, day out with their colleagues in the field.
I also want to pay tribute to them and I will leave it at that by way of introduction.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
And I would also like to remind the journalist that we've sent you the statement of the spokesperson of the UN Secretary General on the death of the second peacekeepers that USG Lacroix was referring to.
So let me open the the floor to question first in the room.
And yes, Pedreiro, AFP.
[Other language spoken]
May I ask the question in French?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
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[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Jimmy, that was your hand down.
Associated Press Jimmy Keaton.
Thank you, Mr Lacroix for coming to see us.
I appreciate that part of me would like you to say all of that in English, but I'll, I'll better that we can, we can, we can keep it different.
I wanted to just follow up on that.
What in terms of the two things you mentioned that you need to have a strong international support for, for, for, for the operations.
And I wanted to know how, how you see that?
Well, what could you be a little bit more concrete as to what kind of specific commitment that you expect from the international community?
And secondly, just in terms of, you know, a few news been around since the mid 70s, if I remember correctly, roughly.
And if you, you know what, and this is kind of the, the lesson learned question, I think.
And yes, I'll to ask you, you know what, how do you assess, you know, the, the lesson from this and what, what, what should the UNIFIL or, or its successor do that it's currently not able to do?
[Other language spoken]
I I believe your question about international support is international support in relation to the Lebanese situation.
First of all, international support to the political process that are currently ongoing, support to the political decisions that were made by the Lebanese authorities, which are difficult and courageous.
Concrete support to the capacity building of the Lebanese Armed Forces, the Lebanese police as well, but also support that will be indispensable to the population.
The humanitarian support in a country now where we have more than 1,000,000 displaced persons and which has suffered just a couple of years ago from a devastating financial crisis.
So that support will be indispensable.
And I would add also that Israel has to play an important role in facilitating conditions so that the Lebanese authorities will be able to do what they have indicated that they were ready to to do.
In terms of the lessons learned from the UNIFL experience, I think the key lesson, which is something that we keep repeating, is that every single peace operation, peacekeeping operation is created to support political efforts, the successful completion of a political process.
But any no, there's no peacekeeping operation that is was ever mandated to achieve by itself political the successful completion of a political process, the successful implementation of a of of an agreement between conflicting parties.
And why?
Because it's up to the parties themselves to do this and for that to happen.
And we've seen that in in many countries where that was achieved, like Cambodia or Timo Leste, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, many countries where the return to stability was successfully completed and and supported by peacekeeping.
You need the parties to implement what they have agreed upon.
And for that to happen, you need a very committed and united international community.
Because if you don't have that, if you have the visions, if you have some member states supporting one party and then another group of member states supporting the other party, this is what we saw in in in a number of situations recently, then those political efforts are unlikely to succeed.
And that leaves peacekeeping operation with what I call the intermediate objective, which is to protect ceasefire, to mitigate the impact of instability and, and, and, and tensions and violence and to protect civilians.
These are important achievements.
They and they have to be assessed against the consideration of what would happen if they were to leave before the return to stability is successfully achieved.
But ultimately, again, the one of our colleagues used the metaphor of of, of a ship, you know, with sails, you know, that these are the peacekeeping operation, but they need wind to be able to, and that wind has to be provided by the member states with their political support, not only to the peacekeeping operation, but also to the political processes that we're there to support.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Timely, timely reference to ship, ship because we're dealing with a lot of shipping issues at the moment in the world.
As you know, the, the just wanted to follow up, you mentioned, I think in response to an yes about the, the, the June proposal that, can you just help us sort of get some contours as to what this proposal might be looking like or what the debate is currently?
I mean, frame it in a sort of a general way.
I imagine they're not some details you don't want to provide, but, but if you could give us a sense, for example, one of the main issues and this has been an issue for peacekeeping operations for, for, for many years is whether or not, for example, the blue helmets will have the right to participate in disarming or, or, or have and have any, any role in that sort.
I mean, are you seeing will, will the successor basically be stronger than UNIFIL or will it be a watered down version of it the way things are going right now?
Right?
What what, what does that mean?
And, and what, where, what is the mandate given to UNIFIL by the Security Council in 22 O 6 in terms of disarming?
It's about patrolling, locating and identifying suspicious places where potentially there is, there are weapons.
And then with the supporting the the Lebanese Armed Forces in taking care of, you know, whatever would be found.
And then for that, obviously again, you need political support from and and political will from the government there.
Of the host country because otherwise the Lebanese armed forces would not have the the kind of political guidance that would authorise them to to do that job.
So what happened over the last 20 years, basically there was no such political will because of the political dynamics proper to Lebanon at this stage.
Now this is changing, but so without this, Unifiel was able to do prevention, the escalation liaison, the confliction.
That worked well then.
And I was also recognised by our interlocutors in the Israeli Defence Forces, whom I met many time.
But being able to access those suspicious places without obstacles to our freedom of movement, without being told, you know, this is private property, there's no way you can go there.
You know, please choose the other route, route and all that kind of thing.
That could have been overcome with the support of the Lebanese Armed Forces and the support of the Lebanese authorities.
[Other language spoken]
But if you talk about enforcing disarmament, disarmament by force, I think disarming an entity you know, which is, which doesn't want to be disarmed peacefully, the synonymous of that is war.
That is not peacekeeping.
You know, forcefully disarming whatever, you know, group or is, is called war.
And that was never the intention for Unifield that, that that is never the and should not be and cannot be a mandate for any peacekeeping operation.
It's called peace enforcement.
Peace enforcement may be called the parliament called for in some situation, then, then that is for that is not for peacekeeping to do this, it's for others.
And we're supporting a number of peace enforcement operation which are conducted not by the UN, by the African Union, in Somalia, in Haiti, by this ad hoc sort of group of member states.
We're supporting those operation in many ways.
But again, it's different from from peacekeeping also for us a very simple reason in addition to the sort of first of all, I don't think that the Security Council would ever give peace enforcement mandate to blue helmets for political reason.
But the second is that I would have a really hard, hard time finding troop contributing countries to do this because, you know, it's it's a very different proposition if you come to true potential troop contributing country and telling that country what what about fighting a war in a place, you know, which is 5000 miles away from your home and from where you don't have much by worth security interests, of course, very different from peacekeeping.
Christian Erich, German News Agency yes, Mr Lacroix, I was going to ask you exactly what the supporting role is, but I think you explained that now looking for suspicious places and indicating that to the to the Lebanese army.
Who would take care of that?
Maybe there are other roles that you can expand on.
But the other question is peacekeeping is also not stopping and invading army or doing anything.
When one army invades the territory.
Is that correct?
Because that that is one of the frustration of the Lebanese people, not the government or the the groups, but the people say, you know, we have UNIFIL here.
But when when the army comes and invades our territory, they just withdraw or they just don't do anything.
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, first of all, the UNIFI has been doing a number of other thing including supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces with the training, provide provision of capacities in different ways.
You know mine action is 1, a number of other areas, engineering and so on and so forth.
Your the other question you you raise is, is important because it has to do with the problem that we sometimes face in terms of perception, particularly when situation on the ground change.
Because, you know, a peacekeeping operation is usually created in a certain situation where you have an agreement between two conflicting parties and the role of peacekeeping and support the implementation by the parties of that agreement.
But then if the situation evolves with, for example, the incursion of the Israeli Armed Forces in Israel, defence forces in Lebanon, OR with the growing influence and activities of terrorist groups in Mali, then you have that perception, OK, you're there.
And you can't protect us from those threats, which was also the case in, in Mali, because the, the, no matter how much, you know, they, our mission in Mali, indeed in terms of protecting civilians in many ways, you know, the, the fighting sort of offensive war against terrorist group is, is also not possible and really not in the mandate.
And I think we have to, of course, manage this because when a peacekeeping operation is created and deployed, then we cannot predict how the situation would evolve, you know, 5 or 10 years from then.
And I believe that at some point, you know, it's for us and also for the Security Council to arbitrate, you know, can a peacekeeping operation remain when the situation, which was initially a decision of post conflict becomes a situation of actual, you know, belligerence?
[Other language spoken]
You know, I think that we have some more somehow to some time to be realistic in terms of, OK, can we still do our job and to what extent or not.
But with this, you know, that there's no clear delineation because many of our missions, in particular in Africa, find themselves in a situation where you don't exactly have a full peace.
You have armed groups, some groups are threatening the population and we have a protection of civilian mandates.
And in those situation then of course our peacekeepers, if needed, you know, act including using force to protect civilians.
It's part of the mandate.
And I think that, you know, having met with the many civilians in many of these areas affected by the president of ARM Group, you know, usually the perception of what we do is very positive.
You know, they're saying please stay and do more.
But where do you draw the line between sort of situation which is becomes impossible to manage as opposed to the situation where we have the duty to keep protecting civilians?
[Other language spoken]
I think it's very much context based.
Thank you very much.
Let me go to the platform.
There are more questions.
Dina Bisab, APTN and I take the opportunity to congratulate Dina.
She's just been elected President of the Association of Correspondents to the UN in Geneva.
So Dina, congratulations and please ask your questions.
[Other language spoken]
Lebanon also and the UNIFIL.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Mr Lacroix, you are speaking about peace enforcement and we know that Israeli occupation forces already occupied Nakura, where the UNIFL bases are based in in South Lebanon.
So how can UNIFL support the Lebanese army and government in asserting control over the occupied borders, especially the so-called yellow line that Israel today designated without further escalation?
And since preserving peace is at the core of its mandate, What is required from UNIFIL today regarding the Israeli aggressions and occupation of more than 50 villages in the southern Lebanon and the systematic demolition of these villages?
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, I mean, it's true that the headquarters of UNIFIL Nakura is now in an area where there is a presence of these real defence forces.
That doesn't mean that UNIFIL is not able to move and operate even within limits and constraints.
Those limits have somewhat loosened up since the beginning of this, what I call the relative ceasefire.
Not full, but still better than during these active hostilities over the past couple of weeks.
Some positions of Unifield are within or inside that area between this so-called yellow line and blue line.
Other position are outside.
What I have to say is that on the one hand, currently Unifield, and that has always been the case, has a liaison and deconfliction channel with the IDF.
That has always been the case.
It's working relatively well.
That has enabled us, that continues to enable us to conduct a number of operations such as a resupply convoys to our position and also a number of convoys aimed at supporting the civilian population.
We currently have around 80,000 civilians have have remained South of the Litani River.
Some civilians, actually more than some are willing to return.
It's going to be challenging to them.
They will need support.
UNIFIL have have recently stepped up its activity in support of humanitarian assistance.
We have done recently an operation at the request of the Prime Minister with the support of the Catholic Church and there will be others to the extent possible and within capacities.
Now, if we think longer term, first of all, obviously the presence of the Israel Defence Forces of in Lebanon is, is certainly a violation of Resolution 1701.
And I remind you that we operate under the political framework of Resolution 1701.
And what I want to add to this is that the situation in Lebanon will have to be solved through a political agreement and a particular agreement that will be implemented, implemented by the Lebanese authorities, again with the support of the international community and the Israel Israel authorities.
Israel, you know, will have to do what it takes to to create the space and the political and and practical and security conditions for that to happen.
I think it's not very realistic to think that, you know, only military means will take care of the problem of the presence of armed groups and Hezbollah and their detention of weapons.
It has to be solved through a much more comprehensive and political set of actions.
Lebanese armed forces will have to play an important role.
But disarming armed groups takes more than the military, the role of, of, of an armed force.
It also takes a number of other activities in the area of, you know, reintegration, socio economic initiatives and so on so forth.
So there's a whole set of, of actions and initiative that will be necessary.
And of course, again, coming back to the role of Israel, it will be critical that the Israeli authorities provide the kind of again, conditions, security wires on the ground, political space for that to to happen.
And obviously, again, presence of the IDF is in Lebanese territory is a violation of Resolution 1701.
Of course, we hope that that presence will eventually be terminated.
[Other language spoken]
Indeed.
I'm sorry.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
And then we go to Reuters.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Indeed.
Are Unifil's tasks military when it comes to disarmament of Hezbollah and humanitarian only when it comes to Israeli violations?
Is it what you have said, Mr Lacroix?
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, right now I, I think again, I mean, what is really at the crux of the matter is the primary responsibility of the Lebanese authorities.
And they are very clear in the sense that they are willing to fully assume these responsibilities and and be empowered and take the necessary actions to again ultimately achieve the again, that objective of a full and exclusive control of weapons of the Lebanese authorities throughout the Lebanese territory.
Now that implies disarming the groups including Hezbollah.
And what that takes is of course, combination of important actions by the Lebanese Armed Forces, but also I believe other types of action in in terms of making sure that the elements which will be designed will be reintegrated, which itself imply a number of initiatives in area of social and economic support.
Now, another thing is humanitarian support.
We are as UNIFIL playing a supportive role in the area where UNIFIL is mandated to act.
There is obviously a need for an increased level of humanitarian support to the Lebanese population given the number of displaced person, given the scope and, and and and and, you know, level of humanitarian needs.
When I was in Lebanon, together with our Secretary General Antonio Guterres, there was an appeal for humanitarian support to humanitarian action.
There was some contribution that were announced.
We, of course, continue to call upon Member states to respond and support this appeal.
Again, it's a combination of various actions and initiative and with the strong political commitment and support from, of course, the Lebanese authorities, but also those who can help and those who can also create conditions for that to happen.
So maybe there's a space that can be open for that.
But we still have, obviously, they still have a lot of work to do moving forward and, and, and a lot of challenges.
Let's be realistic.
I'll take another question from Reuters.
[Other language spoken]
Thanks for the briefing.
I wanted to ask as you prepare your recommendations for June, what is your view of the best option post UNIFIL?
And do you have a figure for how much of Lebanon is currently occupied by Israel?
And then if I may, a broader question.
You mentioned the challenges you're facing across the world in getting financing for peacekeeping.
What sort of cuts do you have to consider in the next year or two if the situation doesn't improve and with what consequences for the civilians you protect?
[Other language spoken]
Now, in terms of the post UNIFIL, we're currently in the process of working on these options.
Again, we listen to the Lebanese authorities.
They're the host government so that these are of course the most important interlocutors and they're very clear that they would want to keep Aun presence.
Again, not necessarily identical to to Unifield, but they have an interest which they shared to us, particularly again in the area of monitoring, reporting, observing the conflicting liaising.
There are a number of capacities that they would want to keep which we have been providing or at least in which we've been providing A contribution.
And so all of this we are factoring in, in the various options that we are currently preparing.
Now, as you can imagine, this is all happening against the backdrop of an evolving political and security context.
You know, we have these discussions between Israel and Lebanon.
We have the situation on the ground, of course, the impact of the recent authorities, the occupation by Israel of I would say about 15%.
I mean that, don't take my word for it, the Lebanese territory, but a significant stretch of land north of the Blue Line with the massive level of demolition and, and no civilian allowed.
Of course we would wish all this to be reversed.
That that.
That is not to say that we're not conscious of security needs not only for Lebanon, but for the whole region.
Obviously a durable solution to the problem will have to take into account the security needs of Lebanon and of Israel.
But that is you know what we're currently working on in terms of the post unit field.
And again we are have to factor in the possible further evolution that will take place or that could take place both politically as well as situation on the ground.
I think we also need to take into account what the bilateral partners are ready to do in terms of additional support to the liberties arm forces, to the police, which also has significant capacity needs and also again, humanitarian assistance.
Now moving to the cuts, well, I think we have two issues.
One is the budget.
In other words, you know the the budget that are adopted by a member state for peacekeeping.
[Other language spoken]
Aware that we need to make the best possible use of the resources that are provided to us by our financial contributors.
We're also aware that most of our financial contributors, at least the most important one have constraint in their public finances.
And that's why we came up with budget proposal which are which present a reduction from last year.
Now another one, another issue which is even more important is cuts because of liquidity, lack of payment of partial payments.
So we have had to cut to save 15% of liquidity and that translated into a reduction of about 25% of the capacities of most of our all of our peacekeeping operation actually.
And of course that has an impact in terms of, you know, if you close a base where there are protection of civilian needs and those civilians will be the less protected or non protected.
If we are less able to patrol an area, a line of separation, you know, in the context of a ceasefire, then of course we may be less able to quickly react to an incident which has the potential to escalate.
So these are the kind of impacts that we feel that we see.
We're trying to mitigate those impacts that they are very real.
And at the end of this month, we will meet with Member States in New York and present more globally what the impact of those cuts have been and also what we're trying to do to mitigate, but of course not erase complete completely these impacts.
Now, as we move forward, of course, our message is to our Member States.
[Other language spoken]
If you give us the mandate that you're giving us to a peacekeeping operation, you need to give us the relevant and adequate resources that we need, and you need to be consistent by paying what you have to pay.
Otherwise there's only so much we can do.
And we will be very candid with you in telling us, in telling you Member States, what the impact is of this shortage of financial resources.
And at some point we may be able, we may be, we may reach a position where in some cases we will tell the Member States we cannot do this anymore.
We can either not do what we're mandated to do.
At least we are not able to do certain tasks that have been mandated to us.
Hopefully there will be payment in full and on time of contribution to peacekeeping.
It's an obligation to Member states.
It's also a question again of consistency that these are the same Member states which are deciding on our mandate and which are paying these contribution to peacekeeping.
So we hope that there will be again consistency and and full payment to peacekeeping.
Thank you very, very much.
OK, just last, last question, sorry, thank you.
I want to just follow up on Emma's question because I, I do think that it bears a, a very basic question about sort of the contours of the post UNIFIL.
You know, you, you, you your, your, your best option for post UNIFIL.
I mean, given the current state you mentioned the, the funding issues and obviously their political issues that are on the table.
What, what is this going to be a smaller or larger force than than the current UNIFIL?
I mean, are we talking, will they be able to maintain a mandate like they've been, they've had up until now or will it be trimmed?
[Other language spoken]
Well, first of all, as I indicated to you, I mean, we've listened to the Lebanese authorities and I think, and I cannot speak on their behalf, of course, but we, we've heard them and we saw the decision that they making and they've made over the past couple of weeks, a month.
And the rationale behind those decisions, I think is that they, they, they want to be empowered.
You know, they, they, they are empowering themselves.
They want to be empowered by the international community.
Then they want to be supported, of course, for this empowerment to to be actual.
And I think it means that in terms of any future role for the UNI think it my understanding it, it will be different from what unifields mandated to do.
I think it will be probably, again, I'm, I'm saying this very cautiously because ultimately this will have to be decided by Security Council.
So if you know any future UN presence, uniformed UN presence will have to be decided by Security Council.
But I think that we're looking at the president, which will probably be smaller than UNIFIL.
At this stage.
There's not much that I can tell you because we're really in the process of working on these options against the backdrop, again, of evolving security and political condition on the ground.
Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot to everyone who has participated in this press conference.
I'd like to thank very, very much and the Secretary General, LACRA for taking the opportunity of his trip to Geneva to speak to the Geneva Press Corps.
Thanks to you all.
Bon Appetit, it's time and thanks again.