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• What is peacekeeping

Our successes

We have, built up an impressive record of peacekeeping achievements over more than 70 years of our existence, including winning the  Nobel Peace Prize .

Since 1948 , the UN has helped end conflicts and foster reconciliation by conducting successful peacekeeping operations in dozens of countries, including Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mozambique, Namibia and Tajikistan.

UN peacekeeping has also made a real difference in other places with recently completed or on-going operations such as Sierra Leone, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Timor-Leste, Liberia, Haiti and Kosovo. By providing basic security guarantees and responding to crises, these UN operations have supported political transitions and helped buttress fragile new state institutions. They have helped countries to close the chapter of conflict and open a path to normal development, even if major peacebuilding challenges remain.

In other instances, however, UN peacekeeping – and the response by the international community as a whole – have been challenged and found wanting, for instance in Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. These setbacks provided important lessons for the international community when deciding how and when to deploy and support UN peacekeeping as a tool to restore and maintain international peace and security.

What factors are required for success? 

As past experience shows, there are several factors that are essential for a successful peacekeeping operation. It must:

• Be guided by the principles of consent, impartiality and the non-use of force except in self-defense and defense of the mandate;
• Be perceived as legitimate and credible, particularly in the eyes of the local population;
• Promote national and local ownership of the peace process in the host country.

Other important factors that help drive success include:

• Genuine commitment to a political process by the parties in working towards peace (there must be a peace to keep);
• Clear, credible and achievable mandates, with matching personnel,   logistic and financial resources;
• Unity of purpose within the Security Council, with active support to UN operations in the field;
• Host country commitment to unhindered UN operations and freedom of movement;
• Supportive engagement by neighbouring countries and regional actors;
• An integrated UN approach, effective coordination with other actors on the ground and good communication with host country authorities and population;
• The utmost sensitivity towards the local population and upholding the highest standards of professionalism and good conduct (peacekeepers must avoid becoming part of the problem).  

A recent story: United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire successfully completed its mandate on 30 June 2017

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Case Studies: United Nations Peacekeeping in Cyprus, Namibia and Former Yugoslavia

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• A. B. Fetherston 2  

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The three case studies discussed below were selected because they each illustrate a distinct period in the development of peacekeeping from the Cold War period through to the present. Moreover they show the potential of peacekeeping as a means of resolving international conflict, borne out in Namibia, as well as its limitations, seen most clearly in former Yugoslavia.

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Notes and References

R. MacDonald (1988/9), ‘The problem of Cyprus’, Adelphi Paper No. 234 , London: Brassey/IISS, p. 7.

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UN Doc. SCR 186, 4 March 1964.

UN Doc. SCR 186, 4 March 1964, para. 5.

Higgins, 1981, provides a detailed description of the early financial difficulties and debates over the issue in the Security Council, pp. 286–301.

UN Docs. S/5679, 2 May 1964 and S/5764, 15 June 1964.

Reasons for the redrawing and redeployment are given in Stegenga, 1969, pp. 97–101, and seemed, at least in part, due to embarrassing breaches of discipline by some UNFICYP troops, who, acting out of sympathy for the Turkish Cypriots, were caught gun-running.

M. Harbottle (1971), The Blue Berets , London: Leo Cooper, pp. 65–6. Harbottle quotes his own work here taking a passage from (1970), The Impartial Soldier , London: Oxford University Press.

Harbottle, 1970, pp. 63–8.

UN Doc. aide-mémoire dated 10 April 1964; UN Doc. S/5671, 29 April 1964, Annex I.

UN Doc. S/5950, 10 September 1964.

UN Doc. S/5950, 10 September 1964, para. 7(b).

Harbottle, 1970, p. 69.

UN Doc. S/5672, 2 May 1964, para. 4.

I.J. Rikhye, M. Harbottle and B. Egge (1974), The Thin Blue Line: International Peacekeeping and Its Future , New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 109.

The Blue Helmets , 1990, p. 295.

The Blue Helmets , 1990, p. 296; Harbottle, 1970, pp. 30–1.

See Harbottle, 1970 and (1980), ‘The strategy of third party interventions in conflict resolution’, International Journal , 35(1):118–31.

Article   Google Scholar  

Harbottle, 1980, p. 118.

Harbottle, 1970, p. 119.

Harbottle, 1970, p. 118.

Harbottle gives the number of meetings as sixteen in The Impartial Soldier and fourteen in his 1980 article.

Harbottle, 1970, p. 120.

Harbottle, 1980, p. 120.

Harbottle, 1970, pp. 116–20.

See UN Doc. S/6228, 11 March 1965 for examples of the importance of negotiation in avoiding escalation of the conflict.

M. Harbottle (1979), ‘Cyprus: an analysis of the UN’s third party role in a “small war”’, in P. Worsley, and P. Kitromilides (eds), Small States in a Modern World: The Conditions of Survival , Cyprus: New Cyprus Association, p. 218.

James, 1989, p. 482.

James, 1989. pp. 482–3.

UN Doc. SCR 353, 20 July 1974, para. 5.

Higgins, 1981, p. 371.

N. McQueen (1983), ‘Ireland and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus’, Review of International Studies , 9(2):100–1.

UN Doc. SCR 831, 27 May 1993.

UN Doc. GAR/47/236, 14 September 1993; see also, UN Doc. A/47/1004, 26 August 1993.

See UN Doc. S/26777, 22 November 1993 for full details of the new arrangements for UNFICYP.

For more details on the peacemaking effort, particularly the confidence building measures including re-opening Nicosia Airport, see UN Doc. S/26438, 14 September 1993; UN Doc. SG/SM/5180, 15 December 1993; UN Doc. S/26777, 22 November 1993.

R.S. Jaster (1990), ‘The 1988 Peace Accords and the future of Southwestern Africa’, Adelphi Papers No. 253 , London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, p. 6.

G. Bender and W. Schneidman (1988), ‘The Namibia negotiations: multilateral versus bilateral approaches to international mediation’, Case No. 422 , University of Southern California: Center for International Studies of the School of International Relations, p. 2; See also UN Chronicle , March 1989, p. 47.

Jaster, 1990, p. 5.

Bender and Schneidman, 1988, p. 2.

Jaster, 1990, p. 7.

Jaster, 1990, pp. 5–6.

For more information see Berridge, 1989, 1990; Crocker, 1990; Jaster, 1990; Legum, 1988.

UN Docs. S/12827 and SCR 435, 29 September 1978; further refined in subsequent documents, see, UN Docs. S/12636 (1978), S/12827 (1978), S/12841 (1978), S/12867 (1978), S/15287 (1982), S/17658 (1985), S/20345 (1988), S/20412 (1989), S/20635 (1989), etc.

UN Doc. SCR 632, 16 February 1989.

UN Doc. SCR 385, 30 January 1976.

The Blue Helmets , 1990, p. 360.

The Blue Helmets , 1990, pp. 354–5.

The Blue Helmets , 1990, p. 365; more information about aspects of the civilian component can be found in pp. 354–7.

The following documents provide a description the reasons for the delay: UN Doc. SCR 629, 16 January 1989; UN Doc. S/20412, 23 January 1989, especially sect II, para. 50–53; UN Doc. SCR 632, 16 February 1989; UN Doc. S/20457, 9 February 1989, para. 2; UN Doc. S/12827, 29 September 1978, sect III, para. 26.

Jaster, 1990, p. 35.

Jaster, 1990, p. 38.

UN Chronicle , June 1989, p. 6.

Jaster, 1990, p. 36.

UN Chronicle , September 1989, p. 6.

Jaster, 1990, p. 41.

UN Chronicle , March 1990, p. 43.

Private interview with author.

The Blue Helmets , 1990, p. 368.

Address given by Cedric Thornberry, Director of the Special Representative’s Office, in Johannesberg, South Africa, UN Doc. UNTAG Press Release , 5 December 1989, p. 4.

Address given by Thornberry, 1989, p. 4.

UN Chronicle , December 1989, p. 8.

UN Chronicle , December 1989, p. 9.

Jaster, 1990, p. 43.

Jaster, 1990, p. 42.

The Blue Helmets , 1990, p. 385.

UN Doc. ‘Statement By the SRSG for Namibia’, 14 November 1989.

Jaster, 1990, p. 45.

UN Chronicle , March 1990, p. 45. For a lengthier study of Namibia’s economic and political progress a year after independence, see Simon, 1991.

The Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina will be referred to as ‘Bosnia’.

J. Gow (1991), ‘Deconstructing Yugoslavia’, Survival 33(4):293.

Gow, 1991, p. 293.

Gow, 1991, pp. 296, 298–303.

M. Glenny (1992), The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War , London: Penguin, pp. 12–14.

L. Basta-Posavec et al , (1992), Inter-ethnic conflict and war in former Yugoslavia , Belgrade: Institute for European Studies, p. 7.

Glenny, 1992, p. 143.

‘Serbian militants blockade Sarajevo’, International Herald Tribune , 3 March 1992.

UN Doc. SCR 713, 25 September 1991.

UN Doc. SCR 724, 15 December 1991. The concept and plan were outlined in a document prepared by the Secretary-General, UN Doc. S/23280, 11 December 1991.

UN Doc. SCR 743, 21 February 1992. Delays were caused by opposition to UN involvement — particularly from the leader of Krajina’s Serbian communities, Milan Babic; ‘News Digest for January 1992’, Keesing’s Record of World Events , p. 38704; ‘UN pressure on Yugoslavs grows’, The Guardian , 8 February 1992.

UN Doc. S/23280, 11 December 1991.

Lord Carrington held his position on behalf of the EC (Council of Ministers) Presidency.

UN Doc. S/24795, 11 November 1992, provides details on the structure and organization of the new conference.

Figures from a 1991 census show that Sector East had a population of 200,000, of which 80,000 were Serbs. Sector West had a population of 100,000 of which 40,000 were Serbs. Sector North had a population of 77,000 of which 55,000 were Serbs. Sector South had a population of 117,000 of which 89,000 were Serbs, see, J. Gow and J.D.D. Smith (1992), ‘Peacemaking, peacekeeping: European security and the Yugoslav wars’, London Defence Studies , No. 11 , London: Brassey’s/Centre for Defence Studies, p. 73.

UN Doc. S/23488, 24 April 1992.

Human Rights Watch, 1993, p. 91.

UN Doc. 23844, 24 April 1992, paras. 9 and 13.

UN Doc. S/23900, 12 May 1992, para. 24; ‘Fresh fighting rules UN out of Bosnia’, The Independent , 8 May 1992.

UN Doc. S/23900, 12 May 1992, para. 18.

UN Doc S/23844, 24 April 1992, para. 23.

UN Doc. S/23900, 12 May 1992, para. 34.

UN Doc. S/24333, 21 July 1992, para. 13.

UNIC, UK, Doc. NS/21/92, 28 May 1992.

UN Doc SCR 762, 30 June 1992, based on S/24188, 26 June 1992, para. 16.

UN Doc SCR 769, 7 August 1992, based on S/24353, 27 July 1992.

UN Doc. S/24848, 24 November 1992.

‘Peace troops stop Croatian clash’, The Guardian , 1 October 1992.

‘Serbs “violating UN plan”’, The Guardian , 1 October 1992.

UN Doc. S/24600, 28 September 1992, para. 5.

UN Doc. S/24600, 28 September 1992.

‘Thin blue line of Russians halt march of angry Groats’, The Times , 1 October 1992; ‘Peace troops stop Croatian clash’, The Guardian , 1 October 1992; UN Doc. S/24848, 24 November 1992, para. 20.

UN Doc. S/24600, 28 September 1992 and S/24848, 24 November 1992, paras. 15–16.

‘Yugoslav commander threatens to halt Croatian withdrawal’, The Times , 20 October 1992; ‘Overland relief convoys suspended by UN’, The Financial Times , 21 October 1992. On withdrawal from the Prevlaka peninsula, see UN Doc. SCR 779, 6 October 1992; ‘Peace pact for Dubrovnik wins favour at the UN’, The Guardian , 6 October 1992; ‘Warship talks clear way to end Dubrovnik siege’, The Independent , 6 October 1992.

UN Doc. SCR 802, 25 January 1993; UN Doc. S/26470, 20 September 1993.

From its inception until mid-September 1993, the peacekeeping force in Croatia sustained 347 casualties, 31 of them fatal; UN Doc. S/26470, 20 September 1993.

UN Doc. S/25993, 24 June 1993, para. 3.

Summary of outbreak of violence is found in, ‘News Digest for March 1992’, Keesings Record of World Events , p. 38832; ‘Bosnia claims independence poll victory’, The Financial Times , 2 March 1992; ‘Serbian militants blockade Sarajevo’, International Herald Tribune , 3 March 1992.

On 28 April 1992, the Council agreed in principle to extend its involvement into Bosnia, ‘News Digest for April 1992’, Keesing’s Record of World Events , p. 38848.

UN Doc. SCR 757, 30 May 1992; ‘News Digest for May 1992’, Keesing’s Record of World Events , p. 38918.

UN Doc. S/24000, 26 May 1992.

UN Doc. SCR 758, 8 June 1992.

‘UN paves way for troops in Sarajevo’, The Financial Times , 11 June 1992; ‘UN convoy heads for Sarajevo’, The Independent , 11 June 1992.

UN Doc. S/24075, 6 June 1992.

‘Nato forces to help Sarajevo airlift’, The Guardian , 17 June 1992; ‘UN halts attempt to relieve siege airport’, The Daily Telegraph , 22 June 1992.

‘French planes deliver supplies to Sarajevo after the UN takes tenuous control of airport’, The Wall Street Journal , 30 June 1992.

‘Carrington gloomy over Bosnia talks’, The Guardian , 16 July 1992; ‘Upsurge in fighting racks Bosnia’, The Independent , 14 July 1992; ‘Victims of European diplomacy’, The Independent , 16 July 1992; ‘Refugees “trail of misery’”, The Independent , 20 July 1992; ‘Truce in Sarajevo fails to take hold’, International Herald Tribune , 20 July 1992.

UN Doc. S/24333, 21 July 1992.

‘Bosnia factions agree ceasefire’, The Guardian , 18 July 1992; ‘Bosnia — the unfinished agenda’, The Guardian , 20 July 1992.

‘Boutros-Ghali attacks EC plan’, The Financial Times , 22 July 1992; ‘Carrington and UN fall out over Bosnian peace plan’, The Times , 22 July 1992.

‘Boutros-Ghali rebuffs UK in call for new talks on Bosnia’, The Independent , 24 July 1992; ‘Keeping the UN peace’, International Herald Tribune , 27 July 1992; ‘Conference agrees basis for Bosnian peace deal’, The Financial Times , 28 August 1992; ‘Sanctions could last for years, says Owen’, The Times , 3 September 1992.

‘Boutros-Ghali attacks EC peace plan’, The Financial Times , 22 July 1992.

‘UN demands cash for peace’, The Guardian , 29 August 1992.

‘Ogata tries to persuade world to face the facts’, The Financial Times , 29 July 1992; ‘Europe facing refugee crisis not seen for half a century’, The Daily Telegraph , 30 July 1992.

UN Doc. S/23900, 12 May 1992, para. 6.

‘Ambush blocks UN aid convoy in Bosnia’, The Independent , 27 July 1992; ‘US consults allies on military escort to protect Bosnia relief’, The Times , 29 July 1992.

‘Nato may send in 100,000 troops to cover aid convoy’, The Independent , 7 August 1992; Margaret Thatcher, ‘Stop the excuses: Serbia should get ultimatum’, International Herald Tribune , 7 August 1992; David Owen, ‘When it is right to fight’, The Times , by 4 August 1992.

UN Doc. SCR 770, 13 August 1992.

UN Doc. SCR 771, 13 August 1992.

‘Italy suspends further aid flights to Sarajevo’, The Financial Times , 5 September 1992; ‘French peacekeepers killed in Yugoslavia’, The Times , 9 September 1992.

UN Doc. S/24540, 10 September 1992.

UN Doc. SCR 776, 14 September 1992.

‘Peacekeeping force to increase fivefold’, The Times , 16 September 1992.

‘UN fights time as Bosnia winter nears’, International Herald Tribune , 25 September 1992; ‘Vance attacks British delay in sending troops’, The Times , 15 October 1992; ‘In Ex-Yugoslavia, UN spins its wheels’, International Herald Tribune , 21–22 November 1992.

‘UN intends to open all Bosnia roads without a fight’, International Herald Tribune , 23 September 1992.

‘UN fights time as Bosnia winter nears’, International Herald Tribune , 25 September 1992.

‘What is in store for them?’, The Daily Telegraph , interviewing John Mackinlay, 11 September 1992.

W. Pfaff, ‘No salvation in sight for the damned of Sarajevo’, International Herald Tribune , 24 September 1992.

‘Peacekeepers at war: British troops leaving for Bosnia would find themselves under fire from all sides’, The Times , 11 September 1992; ‘Crisis of confidence afflicts UN in Bosnia: the peacekeeping operation in Sarajevo is rapidly falling apart’, The Independent , 21 September 1992.

UN Doc. SCR 781, 9 October 1992.

Human Rights Watch, 1992, p. 94.

UN Doc. SCR 816, 31 March 1993; Human Rights Watch, 1992, pp. 94–5.

Human Rights Watch, 1992, p. 95.

UN Doc. S/24923, 9 December 1992 provided a plan for the mission to Macedonia which was authorized by SCR 795, 11 December 1992.

Human Rights Watch, 1992, p. 97.

Human Rights Watch, 1992, p. 98.

UN Doc. SCR 819, 16 April 1993.

UN Doc. SCR 824, 6 May 1993.

UN Doc. SCR 836, 4 June 1993, para. 4.

UN Doc. S/25939, 14 June 1993.

UN Doc. S/25939, 14June 1993.

UN Doc. HR/CN/459, 30 July 1993.

‘UN orders corruption inquiry’, and ‘The soldiers are out of control: they are feasting on a dying city’, The Guardian Weekly , 5 September 1993; ‘Torture used to treat patient’, The Canberra Times , 12 September 1993.

K. Schork, ‘Swedes set new standard for peacekeeping in Bosnia’, Reuter News Service , 6 November 1993; K. Schork, ‘Moslem looting sparks UN intervention in Bosnia town’, Reuter News Service , 4 November 1993.

K. Schork, ‘Swedish UN troops say they led into a trap in Bosnia’, Reuter News Service , 8 November 1993; K. Schork, ‘UN hostages freed in Bosnia’, Reuter News Service , 7 November 1993.

A. Boadle, ‘Canada to review peacekeeping role in Bosnia’, Reuter News Service , 4 January 1994; ‘UN Chief, Canadian Premier discuss Bosnia’, Reuter News Service , 9 January 1994.

K. Schork, ‘Bosnia fighting shadows Vienna peace pledge, Bonn Summit’, Reuter News Service , 5 January 1994.

F. Langan and R. Fox, ‘International — double blow to Bosnia peacekeeping effort’, The Daily Telegraph , 5 January 1994; ‘Belgian UN Commander wants to quit’, Reuter News Service , 4 January 1994.

‘Belgian UN Commander wants to quit’, Reuter News Service , 4 January 1994.

‘Delay in deployment puts UK troops at grave risk’, The Times , 11 September 1992.

‘British troops confident they can deliver aid’, The Independent , 3 November 1992; ‘British troops launch diplomatic offensive’, The Daily Telegraph , 4 November 1992.

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Peace Research Centre, The Australian National University, Australia

A. B. Fetherston ( Post-Doctoral Fellow )

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© 1994 A. B. Fetherston

About this chapter

Fetherston, A.B. (1994). Case Studies: United Nations Peacekeeping in Cyprus, Namibia and Former Yugoslavia. In: Towards a Theory of United Nations Peacekeeping. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23642-8_3

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The Evolution of UN peacekeeping : case studies and comparative analysis

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Stories from the UN Archive: UN’s first peacekeeping force

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As the world celebrates the  International Day of Living Together in Peace , marked annually on 16 May, we are taking you back to the 1950s, when the UN deployed its first ever peacekeeping force to the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula to help bring an end to the Suez Canal crisis.

The crisis began when Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal Company in July 1956, and France and the United Kingdom protested. By October of that year, Israeli forces launched an attack on Egypt and occupied Sinai, with British and French troops landing soon after in the Suez Canal Zone.

The UN was unable to resolve the matter in the Security Council , which met for discussions on 31 October and failed to adopt a decision after France and the UK used their veto power, a privilege of the organ’s permanent members.

Those vetoes triggered provisions in the  “Uniting for Peace” resolution, adopted by the General Assembly in 1950, which states that if the Council, “because of a lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of peace or action of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Member for collective measures”.

Two firsts in UN history

The Uniting for Peace resolution’s terms also stated that an emergency special session could be convened within 24 hours, so that’s what the General Assembly did a day after the Council vetoes.

From 1 to 10 November in its  first ever  emergency special session , the Assembly called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all foreign forces, with then-UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld providing the latest updates.

“We are now less than two hours from the time set for an agreed ceasefire, without commitments from the three Governments, which so far have not indicated their acceptance,” the UN chief told the world body.

The Assembly then requested that, within 48 hours, the Secretary-General should present a plan for the establishment of a United Nations force to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities, so he did.

His  plan was a blueprint for establishing the first UN peacekeeping force – the UN Emergency Force (UNEF). The mandate was to supervise the withdrawal of the three occupying forces and, after the withdrawal was completed, to act as a buffer between the Egyptian and Israeli forces and to provide impartial supervision of the ceasefire. The UN Emergency Force was armed, but the units were to use their weapons only in self-defence and even then, with utmost restraint.

Though more than 100 peacekeepers were killed, the operation successfully oversaw the withdrawal of British, French and Israeli armed forces from Egypt.

Following the swift dispatch of UNEF to the area, the French and British forces left the Suez Canal Zone by 22 December 1956, and the withdrawal of the Israeli forces was completed by 8 March 1957.

UN clears the blocked Suez Canal

UNEF’s creation represented a significant innovation within the UN. It was not a peace enforcement operation, as envisaged in Article 42 of the UN Charter , but a peacekeeping operation to be carried out with the consent and the cooperation of the parties to the conflict.

Stationed entirely on Egyptian territory with the consent of the government, UNEF patrolled the Egypt-Israel armistice demarcation line and the international frontier to the south of the Gaza Strip and brought relative quiet to a long-troubled area.

The Suez Canal, blocked because of the conflict, was cleared by the United Nations.

The UN Emergency Force comprised 6,073 military personnel at its peak, from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, India, Indonesia, Norway, Sweden and then Yugoslavia.

There were fatalities: 109 military personnel and one local staff.

At the request of the Egyptian Government, which informed the Secretary-General that it would no longer consent to the stationing of the Force on Egyptian territory and in Gaza, UNEF withdrew its personnel in May and June 1967.

Watch UN Video’s Stories from the UN Archive  latest episode on UNEF  here .

UN News ’s #ThrowbackThursday series showcases epic moments across UN history, cultivated from the  UN Audiovisual Library ’s 49,400 hours of video and 18,000 hours of audio recordings.

Catch up on UN Video’s Stories from the UN Archive playlist  here and our accompanying series  here .

Join us next Thursday for another dive into history.

• stories from the un archive

The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping: Case Studies and Comparative Analysis

By   william durch, peacekeeping.

• February 1, 1993

Edited by William J. Durch

This is the first comprehensive post-Cold War assessment of this important tool of conflict containment, its rapid growth and development, the factors that make it work, and the new pressures that place the whole concept at risk. Based on a two-year study for the Ford Foundation, it includes twenty case studies of UN operations from 1947 to 1991, and is suitable for use in courses on international law and organization, regional conflict, conflict management, and cooperative security. Please note that this book incorporates Stimson’s March 1992 out of print Report No. 2: Keeping the Peace: The United Nations in the Emerging World Order , by William J. Durch and Barry M. Blechman.

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Does UN Peacekeeping work? Here’s what the data says

UN Photo/Pernaca Sudhakaran. Dutch troops, from the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), guarding a train with refugees returning to Cambodia from camps in Thailand (file, 1993)

United Nations, 10 December 2022

Failures on the part of  UN Peacekeeping  missions have been highly publicised and well documented – and rightly so. But if you look at the overall picture and crunch the data, a different and ultimately positive picture emerges.

The evidence, collected in 16 peer-reviewed studies, shows that peacekeepers – or ‘blue helmets’ as the moniker goes – significantly reduce civilian casualties, shorten conflicts, and help make peace agreements stick.

In fact, the majority of  UN Peacekeeping missions  succeed in their primary goal, ultimately stabilizing societies and ending war.

“If we look systematically across the record – most of the time peacekeeping works.” That’s the verdict of Professor Lise Howard of Georgetown University, in Washington D.C. Her recent book  Power in Peacekeeping  is based on extensive field research across different UN peacekeeping missions.

Significant success

“If we look at the completed missions since the end of the Cold War, two thirds of the time, peacekeepers have been successful at implementing their mandates and departing,” Professor Howard says in an interview with UN Video.

“That’s not to say that in all of those cases, everything is perfect in the countries. But it is to say that they’re no longer at war.”

“Peacekeepers reduce the likelihood that civil wars will recur,” she continues. “They also help to achieve peace agreements. Where there’s a promise of peacekeepers, we are more likely to see a peace agreement and peace agreements that stick.”

Power of persuasion

“The main form of power they exercised was persuasion. Peacekeepers were there to help reform the political system. Nobody had ever voted in an election before.  Peacekeepers were helping to inform citizens of their rights and what it means to elect their own leaders.”

In the complex missions in civil wars, peacekeepers are not only monitoring cease-fire lines, they are also helping to rebuild the basic institutions of the State.

They help demobilize troops. They help reform judicial and economic systems, so that when disputes arise, people don’t have to resort again to violence, to resolve them.

Another key task is protecting civilian lives. During the civil war in South Sudan, UN peacekeepers opened their compounds to hundreds of thousands, providing sanctuary amid intense violence.

Sexual Abuse

There have been times when UN peacekeepers have caused immense harm to civilians – the very opposite of protecting them. A small minority has sexually exploited and abused vulnerable citizens.

The UN has taken measures  to prevent peacekeepers from committing acts of sexual violence. Entire battalions have been sent home and there are mechanisms to make sure that victims feel safe to report peacekeeper sexual abuse and exploitation.

The UN has also raised more than $4 million to support victims of sexual abuse and exploitation in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti and Liberia.  The Trust Fund  helps Member States assist victims and children born of sexual exploitation and abuse.

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Arab League calls for UN peacekeepers in occupied Palestinian territory

Arab leaders accuse Israel of obstructing Gaza ceasefire efforts and demand an end to its war on Palestinian territory.

The Arab League has called for a United Nations peacekeeping force in the occupied Palestinian territory at a summit dominated by Israel’s continuing deadly assault of the Gaza Strip.

The meeting of Arab heads of state and government convened in Bahrain on Tuesday more than seven months into Israel’s offensive in Gaza that has convulsed the wider region.

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The “Manama Declaration” issued by the 22-member bloc called for “international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories” until a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is implemented.

It called for an immediate end to fighting in the Gaza Strip and blamed Israeli “obstruction” for failed negotiations for a ceasefire.

“We stress the need to stop the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip immediately, withdraw the Israeli occupation forces from all areas of the Strip [and] lift the siege imposed on it,” the statement said.

The statement blamed Israel for the war continuing.

“We strongly condemn Israel’s obstruction of cease-fire efforts in the Gaza Strip and its continued military escalation by expanding its aggression against the Palestinian city of Rafah, despite international warnings of the disastrous humanitarian consequences,” it said.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, mediating between Hamas and Israel along with Qatar and the United States, also said Israel was evading efforts to reach a ceasefire.

“Those who think that security and military solutions are able to secure interests or achieve security [are] delusional,” el-Sisi told the summit before its conclusion.

In Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, a widely criticised Israeli ground operation is under way. More than a million displaced Palestinians had sought shelter in the area, after they were forced to flee their homes in other parts of Gaza that had come under intense Israeli bombardment since October. Approximately 600,000 people have fled the area since Israel launched its assault earlier this month, according to the UN.

The Arab League statement also reiterated a longstanding call for a two-state solution along Israel’s borders before the 1967 war, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

The declaration called on “all Palestinian factions to join under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO),” which is dominated by Hamas’s political rivals, Fatah.

The Arab League said it considered the PLO “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.

Israel’s assault has killed at least 35,272 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and severe Israeli restrictions on food, water, fuel and humanitarian supplies has caused dire food shortages and the threat of famine to spread from the north to the south.

The Arab League also “strongly condemned the attacks on commercial ships”, referring to dozens of attacks on vital shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The Iran-aligned Houthis say they are attacking ships linked to Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The Arab League said the attacks “threaten freedom of navigation, international trade, and the interests of countries and peoples of the world”.

The declaration added the Arab nations’ commitment to “ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea” and surrounding areas.

The Arab League was founded in 1945 to promote regional cooperation and resolve disputes. However, it is widely seen as toothless and has long struggled to help solve conflicts in the region.

An Arab-Israeli war in 1967 saw Israel seize the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Israel had annexed East Jerusalem, and successive Israeli governments have encouraged the construction of settlements in the Palestinian territories.

Under international law, the Palestinian territories remain occupied, and Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are considered illegal.

Opinion Haiti’s plight is a case study in the ‘responsibility to protect’

Civilians at risk need protection, but when is humanitarian intervention justified?

After months of delay, a transitional council for Haiti has picked a president and prime minister. The interim appointments pave the way for deployment of an international security force, led by Kenyan police. Its job is to restore order and retake the capital, Port-au-Prince, from armed criminal gangs that control most of it and have already killed thousands . The ultimate goal is an election for a permanent government.

The mission faces a raft of challenges. Though authorized by the United Nations and funded by the United States, the deployment is unpopular in Kenya, where police have a reputation for human rights abuses. It’s unclear that the planned 1,100-man force is large and capable enough to take on hundreds of heavily armed gangs. Will the Kenyans be expected to disarm them? Or just provide a “static” presence at key buildings and infrastructure?

The Haiti deployment represents a comeback for the “ responsibility to protect .” This is the principle, born two decades ago — amid bloody wars in the Balkans, famine and anarchy in Somalia, and genocide in Rwanda — that the international community can, and should, intervene to save civilian populations in failed states. Since the United Nations General Assembly endorsed “R2P” in 2005, however, it has only been invoked once: the NATO-led military mission in Libya in 2011, which began with the goal of preventing massacres and ended with the toppling of Moammar Gaddafi amid anarchic factional fighting.

The Libya intervention not only went awry; it led China, Russia and nations of the Global South to denounce civilian protection as a pretext for the United States and Europe to engage in self-interested regime change. Yet even staunch proponents of R2P also looked at Libya and argued that it was, in hindsight, a misapplication of the concept. Libya helps explain why, in 2012, President Barack Obama hesitated to enforce his “red line” against the Syrian regime’s atrocities, despite urgings from R2P advocates in his administration. U.S. airstrikes might have toppled the regime — creating a power vacuum that the Islamic State could have exploited.

Haiti’s predicament, however, shows that the problem R2P meant to address remains real and that discarding the concept altogether would be a mistake. It needs to be applied more carefully and consistently. Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister and president of the International Crisis Group, has identified five criteria for doing that.

First, the threat of mass civilian casualties must be serious and imminent. Second, while an intervention can never be free of geopolitical motivations or consequences, its primary goal must be to save civilians. Third, opportunities for diplomatic and economic pressure must be exhausted first. Fourth, the military force used must be sufficient to deal with all threats on the ground. Fifth, and crucially, intervention must be reasonably certain to do more good than harm.

These standards can help the U.S. public sort through its inevitably competing impulses: the decent wish to do something — anything — to stop the suffering and the skeptical concern that a given crisis is too complicated, remote and, for a nation with problems of its own, costly.

Such doubts are understandable regarding Haiti, where the record of interventions is lengthy and mixed — from the Marine Corps’s often-abusive 1915-1934 occupation to the cholera epidemic and accusations of sex trafficking during a 2004-2017 U.N. peacekeeping mission .

Also understandable are questions about selectivity: Why a U.S.-backed mission to Haiti but not, say, Sudan, where a two-year battle between dueling warlords has killed at least 15,000 people , displaced 9 million more, left millions on the brink of famine and led to a likely genocide in Darfur? Or Myanmar, whose military, bent on crushing a popular insurgency, has killed more than 6,000 people in almost three years and displaced 3 million more ?

Mr. Evans’s criteria provide answers. The slaughter in Sudan and Myanmar is clear, but not the chances intervention could do more good than harm. Also, the Haiti mission meets a sixth criterion we would add to Mr. Evans’s list: If intervention is warranted, it is crucial to assemble the broadest possible coalition, including countries from the region. The proposed Haiti mission is backed by a U.N. Security Council resolution and Kenyan police; the Bahamas, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Bangladesh have offered additional personnel. It did not trigger Russian and Chinese vetoes at the U.N., as more geopolitically sensitive missions elsewhere might have.

The main lingering uncertainty relates to Mr. Evans’s fourth criterion: force sufficiency. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, who commanded Australian troops in a humanitarian intervention in East Timor in 1999, memorably attributed his success to telling local militias, “there’s only one military force allowed to posture here, and that’s my force.” If the Haiti operation cannot say the same to that country’s gangs, it could fail. With enough U.S. help, though, the mission could save Haitian lives and breathe much-needed new life into the responsibility to protect.

The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board

Editorials represent the views of The Post as an institution, as determined through discussion among members of the Editorial Board , based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.

Members of the Editorial Board: Opinion Editor David Shipley , Deputy Opinion Editor Charles Lane and Deputy Opinion Editor Stephen Stromberg , as well as writers Mary Duenwald, Shadi Hamid , David E. Hoffman , James Hohmann , Heather Long , Mili Mitra , Eduardo Porter , Keith B. Richburg and Molly Roberts .

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Arab League calls for UN peacekeepers in Palestinian territories

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The Arab League on Thursday called for the deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

At a summit meeting of the 22-member organization, the group also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and strongly condemned the advance of the Israeli army into the city of Rafah in the south of the coastal region, which is overcrowded with refugees.

Irreversible steps towards a two-state solution in Israel and the Palestinian territories must be taken, it said in the summit's final declaration. The annual meeting took place for the first time this year in Manama, the capital of Bahrain.

The Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler of the kingdom, Mohammed bin Salman , emphasized that the "fierce aggression" against the Palestinian brothers must be stopped. It was necessary for the international community to fulfil this responsibility, he said.

In his speech, Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa called for an international peace conference for the Middle East. The summit had taken place under extraordinary circumstances, said the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Abul Gheit, an Egyptian diplomat. The Israeli aggression against the people of Gaza represented an historic turning point, he said, adding that the Arab people would not forget the blind violence of the Israeli occupation.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres was also present at the summit. He once again called on the parties in the Gaza war to agree on a ceasefire, and described the conflict as "an open wound" that threatened to infect the whole region.

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Middle East Crisis Israel Says It Will Send More Troops to Rafah, Defying International Pressure

• Share full article

• A mourner during a funeral of three Palestinians killed in a raid in the West Bank. Raneen Sawafta/Reuters
• An aid ship off the coast of Gaza near a temporary floating pier is seen from central Gaza. Ramadan Abed/Reuters
• Humanitarian aid is airdropped near Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock
• A boy standing next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
• Displaced Palestinians sitting in front of a devastated building in Khan Younis. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
• An Israeli tank patrolling in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Atef Safadi/EPA, via Shutterstock
• Mourners in Jerusalem carrying the body of an Israeli soldier killed by friendly fire. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

The announcement suggests that Israel plans to push deeper into Rafah.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said on Thursday that the Israeli army would send more troops to Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which has become the focal point in the war between Israel and Hamas.

The announcement signaled that Israel intended to press deeper into Rafah despite international concerns about its ground invasion of the city, where more than a million displaced people had been sheltering.

“Hundreds of targets have already been attacked,” Mr. Gallant said after meeting with commanders in the Rafah area. “This operation will continue.”

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled the city in recent days, many of whom have had to move repeatedly over seven months of an unrelenting war, U.N. officials say.

Until now, Israeli troops and tanks have made only a limited incursion into eastern Rafah, and on May 7 they seized the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, a vital entry point for aid. The crossing remains shuttered, leaving wounded and ill people who need treatment abroad with no way out, and hundreds of aid trucks piling up in Egypt.

Diplomats and Palestinian officials have said the army’s operations in and around the crossing and nearby clashes between soldiers and Hamas fighters have created a dangerous environment for humanitarian workers.

Mr. Gallant, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, also said Israeli troops had destroyed tunnels in Rafah. Two Israeli officials said a key objective of the operation was to demolish tunnels between Egypt and Gaza that have allowed Hamas to replenish its weapons supply over the years.

Egypt and Israel maintain a decades-old peace treaty and close security cooperation, but Israel’s invasion of Rafah has tested the sensitive relationship.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly spoken of the need to destroy Hamas’s battalions in Rafah. In recent days, some Hamas militants have fled the city, according to four Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

The fighters have headed northward alongside civilians, the officials said. While it was unclear how many militants escaped, their flight underscored that at least some would be left unscathed by Israel’s invasion of the city.

Natan Odenheimer contributed reporting.

— Adam Rasgon reporting from Jerusalem

Families who fled Israel’s offensive find refuge but little else in Khan Younis.

Outside a United Nations-run school in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, on Thursday, a few trucks carrying humanitarian aid drove down the street while children tried to grab whatever they could, some making off with bags of sugar.

Inside the school’s courtyard, Ra’fat Abu Tueima, 62, sat in a tent with his wife, their young son and eight children from his late first wife. The family took up residence there last week after being displaced for the sixth time since the war in Gaza began. They had been sheltering in Rafah, near the enclave’s border with Egypt, when Israel launched an offensive, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee.

Mr. Abu Tueima, a taxi driver before the war, said that being displaced so many times had left them exhausted and without support. Aside from what the occasional aid truck can bring, few relief supplies, including food or tents, have been made available to the thousands of Palestinians who have fled to Khan Younis over the past week and a half, since the Rafah operation began.

“No one here helped us with anything,” Mr. Abu Tueima said, beginning to break down in tears.

“Life here is not fair at all for us; we want to live in peace like others,” he said. “In Rafah, people and charities offered us a little money, but here, not one single person asked about us. No one even cares about all of those children and women here.”

Israel’s offensive in Rafah has stopped nearly all aid from getting through the two main border crossings in southern Gaza. The United Nations’ World Food Program warned on Wednesday that its food and fuel stocks would run out in a matter of days, saying in a statement that “the threat of famine in Gaza never loomed larger.”

The agency also said it had difficulty reaching its main warehouse in Rafah because of the Israeli offensive and fighting in the area.

Fuel in Gaza has been in short supply ever since Israel announced a “complete siege” of the territory on Oct. 9, two days after the Hamas-led attack. The lack of fuel has threatened the operation of trucks, hospitals, generators, sewage pumping plants, desalination systems and other basic services for 2.2 million people.

At least 600,000 people have fled Rafah in just the last week, according to the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, known as UNRWA. Another 100,000 have been displaced from their homes and shelters in northern Gaza amid renewed evacuation orders from the Israeli military, which said it was engaged in intense fighting with Hamas fighters who had returned to the area.

In Khan Younis, “no one is distributing anything, no one is helping, nothing enters to help the people,” said Mohammed Aborjela, who arrived from Rafah days ago. The few goods arriving in the city on commercial trucks are being sold at high prices, he said.

The 27-year-old, a project coordinator with a development organization, said that Palestinians fleeing Rafah and other areas were paying hundreds of dollars for transportation on the backs of trucks and donkey carts, leaving them little money to pay for food or tents, which sell for at least 1,000 shekels (about $270) and as much as twice that.

“People don’t have this money,” he said. “People are sleeping in the streets waiting for aid groups to come and help them build a tent.”

The Tueima family fled Rafah a week ago and managed to bring only blankets and clothes. They had to pay 250 shekels for a van to transport them from the embattled city to the U.N. school in Khan Younis where they are now sheltering.

His wife, Najah Abu Tueima, 42, miscarried with twins days into the war after the family was forced under bombardment to flee its home near the Israeli border.

“We are here on our own,” Ms. Abu Tueima said. “I’m fed up and over-exhausted with the repeated evacuation journeys and suffering.”

— Raja Abdulrahim and Bilal Shbair

The Arab League calls for U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Arab League called on Thursday for a United Nations peacekeeping force to be deployed in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank until a two-state solution can be negotiated, in a statement that also called for the U.N. Security Council to set a time limit for that political process.

The notion of deploying U.N. peacekeepers into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been mentioned occasionally by diplomats. But the Arab League’s statement appeared to be the first time the group had officially made such a request in a written document, according to Farhan Haq, a U.N. spokesman.

It’s unlikely that U.N. peacekeepers would be deployed to Gaza and the West Bank in the near future because sending U.N. peacekeepers into any conflict requires first the authorization of the Council . U.N. forces, which are typically drawn from the armed forces of multiple countries, do not enter live battle zones and do not engage in fighting. Both Israel and Hamas would also have to agree to having U.N. peacekeepers on the ground.

“There first has to be peace to keep,” Mr. Haq said. “We don’t go into active combat, and parties themselves have to agree on allowing the presence of peacekeepers. We don’t go in as an enemy force or an occupying force.”

The proposal came as part of a final statement issued by the league after its 22 members met on Thursday in Manama, Bahrain, a summit dominated by discussion about the war in Gaza.

In addition to calling for an immediate cease-fire and accusing Israel of obstructing those efforts, the Arab League called for “the deployment of United Nations international protection and peacekeeping forces in the occupied Palestinian territory until the two-state solution is implemented.”

The United Nations, Mr. Haq said, would be willing to take other measures called for by the Arab League, such as hosting or leading a conference toward peace and cease-fire in the conflict. But no definite plans have been discussed yet, he said.

Asked whether the United States would support the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, a State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, told reporters in Washington that bringing in “additional security forces” could potentially compromise Israel’s campaign to dismantle Hamas.

The Arab League’s statement, reported in Bahrain’s state news media, also reiterated the group’s position that a two-state solution should be based on the borders that were in place before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. The group said that the Council should not only take “clear measures” toward implementing such a solution but also establish a time limit for doing so.

In an address to the summit on Thursday, António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, said that a two-state solution was “the only permanent way to end the cycle of violence and instability.”

“The war in Gaza is an open wound that threatens to infect the entire region,” Mr. Guterres said, adding that “nothing” could justify the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel or the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

The Arab League’s call for U.N. peacekeepers came amid fervent debate over how Gaza should be governed after the war. Negotiations over a cease-fire have been complicated by Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah . They were already stalled by staunch disagreements between Israel and Hamas over how long a truce should last and the terms of an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

— Anushka Patil and Farnaz Fassihi

Satellite images show widening destruction as Israeli forces push closer to central Rafah.

Destruction

Source: Satellite imagery from Planet Labs

Israeli forces appear to be pushing closer to the center of the city of Rafah, according to satellite imagery, which shows military vehicles and widespread destruction of neighborhoods more than two and a half miles into Gaza from the Israeli border, as well as Palestinians fleeing the city even outside of areas the Israeli military has said to evacuate.

Israeli troops are still on the eastern side of the city in southern Gaza, according to the imagery, captured on Wednesday by the commercial satellite company Planet Labs. But they have continued to move toward central Rafah in recent days, passing the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and Salah al-Din road, Gaza’s main artery.

Collapsed buildings and debris are seen throughout this neighborhood, where only limited damage was visible before Israel started its incursion last week.

While it is not possible to know exactly what caused the damage in areas throughout Rafah, much of what is seen is consistent with the aftermath of Israeli bombardment and ground operations elsewhere in Gaza since the war began last October.

Israel says Rafah is Hamas’s last stronghold, and a critical gateway for arms shipments smuggled into Gaza from Egypt. It says it is determined to make sure the militants who were behind the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel no longer pose a threat.

But Rafah has also been a refuge for more than a million Palestinians who fled Israeli bombardment in other parts of Gaza. The United Nations says that hundreds of thousands of people have fled Rafah in recent days, and the imagery indicates that large numbers of people are leaving the center of Rafah, even in areas outside of evacuation orders the Israeli military has issued for the city.

Areas of Rafah that were full of tents and vehicles just a week ago appeared empty on Wednesday.

Tents and people

U.N. logistics

Christoph Koettl contributed reporting.

— Lauren Leatherby

The U.S. military installs a temporary pier in Gaza for humanitarian aid.

The U.S. military anchored a temporary pier on Gaza’s coast on Thursday, creating a point of entry for humanitarian aid for the enclave, where the flow of supplies through land borders has largely come to a halt since Israel began its incursion into Rafah last week.

The aid will be loaded onto trucks that will begin moving ashore “in the coming days,” the U.S. Central Command said in a statement Thursday morning. U.S. officials had said last week that the floating pier and causeway had been completed , but that weather conditions had delayed their installation.

Israel has long opposed a seaport for Gaza, saying it would pose a security threat. As the humanitarian crisis in the territory has spiraled in recent months, with severe shortages of food, medicine and other basic needs, the U.S. military in March announced a plan to build a temporary pier to enable aid shipments via the Mediterranean Sea.

An American ship loaded with humanitarian aid, the Sagamore, set off for Gaza from Cyprus last week, and the aid was loaded onto a smaller vessel that had been waiting for the pier to be installed. The United Nations will receive the aid and oversee its distribution in Gaza, according to Central Command, which said no U.S. troops would set foot in the territory.

Over the next two days, the U.S. military and humanitarian groups will aim to load three to five trucks from the pier and send them into Gaza as a test of the process laid out by the Pentagon, said General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“It’ll probably take another 24 hours to make sure everything is set up,” he told reporters on Thursday aboard a flight to Brussels, where he was attending a NATO meeting. “We have our force protection that’s been put in place, we have contract truck drivers on the other side and there’s fuel for those truck drivers as well.”

The Pentagon hopes the pier operation will bring in enough aid for around 90 trucks a day, a number that will increase to 150 trucks when the system reaches full operating capacity, officials say.

In a briefing on Thursday, an Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said supporting the temporary pier project was a “top priority.” He said the Israeli Navy and the 99th Division were supporting the effort by sea and by land, respectively.

Aid groups say the devastation in Gaza after seven months of Israeli bombardment, strict Israeli inspections and restrictions on crossing points are limiting the amount of aid that can enter Gaza. Israel has maintained that the restrictions are necessary to ensure that neither weapons nor supplies fall into the hands of Hamas.

In a briefing on Wednesday , Dan Dieckhaus, a director for the U.S. Agency for International Development, stressed that the maritime aid corridor was meant to supplement deliveries through land crossings, not replace them.

The Pentagon has said that the pier could help deliver as many as two million meals a day.

An aid group, World Central Kitchen, built a makeshift jetty in mid-March to deliver aid by sea to Gaza for the first time in nearly two decades. But those efforts came to an abrupt stop in early April after seven of the group’s workers were killed in an Israeli strike .

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

— Victoria Kim

The top U.N. court hears new arguments from South Africa on Israel’s actions in Gaza.

South Africa on Thursday urged the judges of the United Nations’ top court to order Israel to end its ground assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, saying it put Palestinian life in the enclave at imminent risk of destruction.

The hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague came after South Africa requested last week that the court issue further constraints on Israel in its military campaign in Gaza. In filings disclosed by the court, South Africa cited the “irreparable harm” posed by Israel’s incursion into Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza where half of the territory’s population had sought refuge.

“It has become increasingly clear that Israel’s actions in Rafah are part of the end game in which Gaza is utterly destroyed as an area capable of human habitation,” Vaughan Lowe, a British lawyer, told the court. “This is the last step in the destruction of Gaza and its Palestinian people.”

Mr. Lowe was part of the South African legal team that presented its case over two hours on Thursday.

South Africa’s filings said the rights of Palestinians in Gaza were under threat, adding that Israel’s control over two major border crossings in southern Gaza — at Rafah and at Kerem Shalom — put at extreme risk the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza and the ability for hospitals there to function.

“It is difficult to imagine such a situation could get worse, but, unfortunately, it has,” John Dugard, another member of the South African team, told the court.

Several members of the team addressed the court in an attempt to build their case, quoting frequently from warnings by senior United Nations officials that an assault on Rafah would worsen conditions for civilians and the enclave’s hunger crisis.

One member of South African legal team, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, quoted statements by senior Israeli officials that he said showed an intent to destroy Gaza as a whole and not simply Hamas, the country’s stated enemy.

The legal team also asked the court to order Israel to facilitate access to Gaza for aid workers, investigators, fact-finding missions and journalists.

One of the lawyers, Adila Hassim, showed the court a photo of shattered buildings in Khan Younis, a city north of Rafah, to illustrate the devastation caused by Israel’s military in Gaza as a whole. Ms. Hassim appeared to be on the verge of tears as she described the deaths of children in the military campaign.

Israel has vehemently denied South Africa’s claims, repeating that it has placed no restrictions on the amount of aid entering the enclave and that it has taken steps recently to ramp up the amount of food and other supplies going in, including opening two crossing points in northern Gaza.

Israel has also said that its latest assault on eastern Rafah was a “precise operation” targeting only members of Hamas, the terrorist group that led the Oct. 7 attacks, which Israeli authorities say killed more than 1,200 Israelis and led to the capture of about 250 others.

Israel is expected to make its defense before the court on Friday. Gilad Noam, Israel’s deputy attorney general for international law, is among the officials in the Israeli delegation who are expected to address the court. It was not clear when the court would issue a decision, but given that South Africa said on Thursday that its petition was extremely urgent because an assault on Rafah was ongoing, it appeared possible that a ruling could come soon.

The hearings are part of South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide, which it filed in December . In late January, the court ordered Israel to do more to prevent acts of genocide, but it stopped short of calling for a cease-fire. The main case, dealing with the accusation of genocide, is not expected to start until next year.

The court, established by the founding charter of the United Nations in 1945, was created to settle disputes between member states. It has no means of enforcing its orders, but the South Africa case has contributed to the international pressure on Israel to rein in its campaign in Gaza.

Marlise Simons and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

— Gaya Gupta and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Iraqi groups close to Iran are joining in strikes on Israel.

Most attacks on Israel during the war in the Gaza Strip have come from Palestinian militants and from Hezbollah forces across the border in Lebanon. But over the past three months, an increasing number have been carried out by armed groups based in Iraq.

In just the first half of May, Iraqi groups have launched about 28 strikes, they said. Those are in addition to attacks by other proxy forces that Iran uses to extend its reach across the Middle East. The number is considerably higher than the number of strikes in the same period in April, when the Iraqi groups claimed responsibility for about 19 attacks.

These attacks, much like those launched by Hamas, Hezbollah and by other Iranian-backed groups, are intercepted by Israel or fail en route.

The most recent attack occurred early Thursday and was aimed at Eilat, where Israel has a naval base and at an oil refinery in Haifa, according to a statement from the Iraqi Resistance groups.

The Israeli military has not commented publicly on the strikes, although it sometimes notes — as it did in a Telegram post on May 15 — that it has intercepted missiles or drones coming “from the east toward Israeli territory.”

Since the Israeli military is not commenting on the attacks, it is difficult to know how many have been blocked by Israel’s multilayered missile defense.

“These drones and cruise missiles coming from Iraq and eastern Syria have very long journeys, and the Israelis have ample time and opportunity to intercept over Syria or over Iraq and Jordan,” said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research institute.

On May 9, the Israeli military appears to have struck back, destroying a building used by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, according to reports from the Syrian Defense Ministry. The ministry said it had shot down some Israeli missiles launched from the Golan Heights toward the southern area of the Syrian capital, Damascus, where the building was.

In a statement, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denounced the Israeli attack, calling it “a treacherous targeting of a cultural and media building” by the “usurping Zionist entity” and pledging revenge.

The Iraqi Resistance is made up of a number of armed groups, most prominently Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat al Nujaba and Sayyid al Shuhada. The last one appears not to have participated in the recent attacks on Israel.

The Iraqi groups’ strikes started in November, a month after the war between Israel and Hamas began, but there were only a few at first, according to the Washington Institute’s calendar of attacks by Iraqi armed groups linked to Iran.

In February, after the Iraqi Resistance was persuaded to halt its attacks on U.S. military camps and installations in Iraq and Syria, the number of strikes on Israel rose quickly. In total, the Iraqi Resistance groups have announced carrying out more than 70 attacks since the beginning of the war in Gaza, with most occurring in 2024.

A senior member of Kata’ib Hezbollah said in an interview that while the group’s drones and al-Arqab missiles from Iraq and Syria hit their targets only some of the time and that Israel can intercept rockets, the very fact of using them sends a message “that we will reach them soon.”

In the context of all the attacks on Israel, the number launched by Iraqi groups remains relatively low, but they are still destabilizing, said Shaan Shaikh, the deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“It’s certainly harassment,” he said, “and it presents a threat of escalation. If one gets through and hurts or kills someone, it would almost certainly result in an exchange of fire. And then you don’t know what could happen.”

— Alissa J. Rubin

5 Israeli soldiers were killed by gunfire from their own tanks, the military says.

Israeli tank fire killed five of Israel’s own soldiers in Gaza, a military spokesman said on Thursday, in the latest incident of self-inflicted casualties since Israel launched a ground invasion of the enclave in October.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said at a news briefing that the men had been killed by tank fire on Wednesday as they were fighting in a densely populated area of the territory.

“There was an incident of friendly fire — five soldiers were killed,” he said, adding, “The incident is under review.”

The Jerusalem Post reported that the men had been killed in Gaza City in the north of the territory, and that seven soldiers had also been wounded when two tanks opened fire. The Israeli military later named the five , who were from the Paratroopers Brigade, on its website.

The bulk of Israeli forces began a withdrawal from northern Gaza earlier this year, with Israel saying it had defeated Hamas battalions in the area. But in recent weeks Israeli troops have returned to the north, including Gaza City, to battle fighters from Hamas they said have regrouped.

About 278 Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since the start of the military offensive more than seven months ago, the military has said. It said in December that one-fifth of the 105 soldiers who had been killed to that point had died in accidents and that, of those deaths, 13 were the result of friendly fire.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

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