A spokesperson for UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Saturday said that Israel had requested it leave its positions in south Lebanon where Israel is clashing with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, but they had refused.

They asked us to withdraw “from the positions along the blue line … or up to five kilometers (three miles) from the blue line,” UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Agence France-Presse (AFP), using the term for the demarcation line between both countries. “But there was a unanimous decision to stay,” he said.