France calls for the Security Council to convene after Israel's takeover of the Shuqif fortress

The French Foreign Minister announced on Sunday, May 31, that his country has requested an emergency meeting  of the United Nations Security Council after the Israeli occupation army took control of the strategic fortress of Al-Shukif in southern Lebanon.

"I asked for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council because if we recognize Israel's right, like any country, to legitimately defend itself, against Hezbollah attacks, nothing justifies the extension of Israeli military operations in Lebanon and its wider occupation of Lebanese territory," Jean-Noël Barrow told BFMTV.

"It is a grave mistake by Israel because this advance on Lebanese territory is not only contrary to Israel's commitments, as long as there has been  a  ceasefire in Lebanon since April 17, but also contradicts international law and Israel's interests and security," he said.

"Every village is bombed, every village is occupied, every civilian is killed, (all of this) strengthens Hezbollah," Barrow said.

Israeli officials boast about occupying the citadel

Israeli officials raced to celebrate the capture of the strategic al-Shukif fortress, with Netanyahu on Sunday (May 31st) calling his forces' takeover of al-Shukif fortress in southern Lebanon a "decisive shift" in the attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Netanyahu said in a video statement: "The control of the Shqif Fortress is a decisive transformation (...) We have broken the barrier of fear as we work on all fronts, in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon."

Israeli War Minister  Yisrael Katz wrote on his Telegram channel: "After 44 years and on the day of commemoration of the soldiers who fell in the First Lebanon War (1982), the soldiers returned to the top of the Shukif fortress and raised the Israeli flag over it again."

What do you know about the Lebanese Sticky Castle?

The strategic fortress has a long history of battles with the occupying forces, and is one of the most fortified and important military positions in the region, due to its oversight of large parts of southern Lebanon and northern occupied Palestine.

The castle covers an area of about 1.6 square kilometers, about 160 meters long and only 100 meters wide, and takes the shape of a boat roughly the shape of a triangle.

The castle is about two kilometers or less from the town of Arnon in southern Lebanon, and directly overlooks the settlement of Metulla, less than 4 kilometers away.

The castle also overlooks the Litani River and the Nabatieh Marjayoun axis, in addition to the areas of Arnon, Kafr Tibnit, Yahmar and Zuter, all the way to the eastern sector from the south, and overlooks the towns of Taybeh, Deir Syrian, and Qantara.

Why is the castle important?

Perched on a steep rocky peak about 717 meters above sea level, the castle has rugged and hard-to-reach nature, which has made it a very difficult defensive position since the Middle Ages.

Since the 1980s, the citadel has been transformed into a site for monitoring, control, and field control in southern Lebanon, and this location of the citadel has turned it into an arena of major confrontations between the Palestinian resistance, the Lebanese resistance, on the one hand, and the Israeli occupation army on the other.

What do you know about the Battle of Al-Shuqaif?

During the 1980s, the PLO factions took the Citadel as an advanced military position, taking advantage of its high location that allows monitoring large areas of the Upper Galilee and southern Lebanon, during which time the Citadel was subjected to dozens of Israeli raids and bombardments without the occupation army being able to control it.

However, on June 6, 1982, the occupying forces launched a large-scale attack on the citadel, where groups of Fatah and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters were stationed  , and the operation was preceded by air strikes and heavy artillery shelling, and then units of the Israeli Golani Brigade carried out a direct ground attack on the site.

Despite Israel's great superiority in numbers, equipment and aviation, the attacking forces faced fierce resistance inside the fortifications and trenches surrounding the fortress, and the battle resulted in the death of a number of Israeli soldiers, including the commander of the reconnaissance unit of the Golani Brigade, while a number of Palestinian fighters fell after many hours of clashes.

When did the occupation withdraw from Al-Shuqaif?

In May 2000, with the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, the Israeli army evacuated the fortress after an occupation of about 18 years, destroying large parts of its military installations before withdrawing, and the withdrawal from Shuqif became one of the prominent symbols of the end of Israel's occupation of most of southern Lebanon.

The citadel has been protected by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) since 2024, and  Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh warned on Friday that a number of important archaeological sites in Lebanon were at "serious risk" from Israeli raids, particularly the Shuqif Castle.