The United Nations Security Council will vote Monday on the future of the blue helmet peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon that has faced US and Israeli opposition.

The Council will vote on a French-drafted compromise that would keep the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), deployed in 1978 to separate Israel and Lebanon, in place for one more year while it prepares to withdraw.

In the latest draft text seen by AFP, the Council would signal "its intention to work on a withdrawal of UNIFIL with the aim of making the Lebanese Government the sole provider of security in southern Lebanon."

Under a truce that ended a recent war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, Beirut's army has been deploying in south Lebanon and dismantling the militant group's infrastructure there

See Full Page