UN peacekeeping chief outlines options for post-UNIFIL monitoring force in southern Lebanon
NEW YORK CITY: The head of UN peacekeeping used his final International Day of UN Peacekeepers address to issue an urgent call for the violence in Lebanon to end, as the organization mourned the death of yet another soldier killed while serving with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the under-secretary-general for peace operations, said that Sgt. Nilovan Ivanovic of Serbia died from critical injuries sustained when mortar shells struck his position in Lebanon. He would have celebrated his 37th birthday the following day. He was the seventh UNIFIL peacekeeper killed since March 2026.
“All these attacks against peacekeepers are unacceptable,” Lacroix told journalists at the UN headquarters in New York.
“The violence must stop for the civilians who are living under constant threat, it has to stop for the more than 1 million people displaced from their homes, and for the peacekeepers who are there, holding that position in Lebanon, liaising with the parties, doing their best to maintain stability.”
