Israel’s ambassador to Malta says his country is trying its best to guarantee the safety of Maltese soldiers attached to a UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon that has come under fire from Israeli troops in recent weeks.

In an interview with Times of Malta, speaking from his home in Israel, ambassador Ze’ev Boker said when asked whether Israel could guarantee the safety of seven Maltese soldiers close to the Israel-Lebanon border: “We are trying our best.”

Elaborating that he had been approached by top Maltese officials with the same question, Boker said his superiors had given him the same answer.

“Our message to our Maltese high-level counterparts [was] Israel will do its best to assure the safety of Maltese soldiers in southern Lebanon,” he said.

“We are trying our best not to target the Maltese, Irish or other nations that are there; we are friends of them, and we are not looking at them as our challengers... We are doing our best to see there will be no damage, no injury, to the UN soldiers in Lebanon.”

The ambassador was speaking a week after at least four peacekeepers – none Maltese – in the region were injured after coming under fire from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in two separate incidents.

And on Wednesday, UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] complained of “yet again... direct and apparently deliberate fire” on one of its positions after a watchtower was allegedly targeted by IDF.

Seeming to attribute a degree of blame to the organisation for the incidents, however, Boker said Israel had asked it “to redeploy to five kilometres from the border, and the UNIFIL commander decided not to do it.”

Claiming that IDF forces had located a base of Hezbollah – a Lebanon-based Shia militant group – “tens of metres” away from a UNIFIL position, he said the latter had been hit “by mistake” as Israeli forces attempted to neutralise the Hezbollah encampment.

Boker stressed that Israeli forces were targeting the militant group “as distinctly as possible” and that the UN peacekeeping force was “not our target.”

Criticising UNIFIL, however, Boker said its presence in Lebanon “did not fulfill what we expect,” calling Hezbollah’s activities in the region “unprecedented” despite a 2006 UN resolution increasing the size of the peacekeeping force and requiring the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon.

Earlier this month, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri told Times of Malta a plan had been drawn up to evacuate Maltese soldiers from Lebanon after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel in a dramatic intensifying of the crisis.

Sinwar’s death a ‘major achievement’

On Thursday, Israel claimed a major victory, announcing that Yahya Sinwar, the de facto leader of Hamas and mastermind of the attacks on Israel last year, had been killed.

Asked for his reaction at the news, Boker said “I won’t say joy or happiness are the right words... the feelings this morning in Israel are mixed,” while underscoring the continued absence of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas in its attacks on October 7.

“The fact that he [Sinwar] is not with us anymore, I think it’s a major achievement for the IDF. I think it is also a moment of opportunity to bring our abductees back... and see Gaza will not be any more a threat to our citizens,” he said.

Saying he hoped Sinwar’s death would deter “potential terrorists” from “taking up rifles and fighting against us”, Boker hinted at wanting to see a diplomatic solution, but noted that what happened next depended on how Hamas responded to Sinwar’s death – and who replaced him.

“The situation is not black and white, so it depends on the modus operandi for the other side and who is going to be there instead of Sinwar,” he said.

It is expected that Mohammad Sinwar, the younger brother of the recently killed Hamas leader, will take his brother’s place, according to international media reports.

“Some people say his [Sinwar’s] brother is more extreme... but I do hope there will be a positive process that will bring back our abductees and enable... an arrangement that guarantees peace”.

War without end?

But with Sinwar and other key members of Hamas’ leadership dead and the death toll in Gaza having climbed to over 42,000 according to Palestinian health authorities, how does the ambassador respond to those who argue that now is the time to stop the war? 

“We wish to have the war over as soon as possible,” Boker said, but stressed this could only happen once “the threat to our population in the south of Israel” was removed.

Taking issue with the number of casualties quoted by Times of Malta, Boker claimed that “at least 20,000 of them are terrorists, not civilians,” a figure he attributed to “statistics and evidence” held by Israel when pressed.

Asked how many Hamas members Israel believe are still in Gaza, the ambassador said there are “at least thousands more”, some of which he said could be in a “dormant status.”

However, with suggestions that continuing civilian casualties in Gaza could act as a recruitment drive for Hamas and with Boker’s assertion that “thousands” more militants remain, is the reality a war without end?

“No, you try to put things in my mouth, I never said a war without end. I said very clearly that the Israelis wish – and I think also the Palestinian population – to see an end to the war as soon as possible. But no country could afford to repeat the scenario of October 7,” he said.

Losing support

With Israel striking targets in Lebanon and Iran, asked about the dangers of plunging the region into wider conflict Boker said it was Iran, not Israel, that was escalating the situation.

Stressing that Iran represented a threat to Europe, not just Israel, the ambassador said its missiles could “reach easily Malta,” adding Malta was also facing disruption from attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Asked about public opinion, which appeared to have shifted against Israel over the last year, Boker said his country recognised the importance of preserving international support, which had “naturally” declined during the war.

But he said international audiences were less exposed to “suffering from the Israeli side” than they were to the experiences of those in Gaza.

War crimes

Responding to allegations of war crimes committed by IDF troops, the ambassador acknowledged that while such accusations represented a “challenge” for Israel, each country had the “right to investigate itself” under international law – something he did not think was being respected. 

Claiming not to know about widely publicised footage that emerged last month showing IDF soldiers throwing Palestinian bodies off a roof during a raid in the occupied West Bank – an incident Israel said it was investigating – Boker insisted his country has “one of the strongest” legal systems in the international community for investigating such incidents.

Pointing to the life imprisonment of an Israeli terrorist responsible for the death of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, whom Boker served under, the ambassador said, “Israel knows how to deal also with threats from itself, and that is what we are obliged to do”.

This interview was carried out before the Hezbollah attack on the private residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and as such it did not feature in this discussion.