Intentional, or a side effect?
In the last war, much of the fighting took place on open scrubland, Merli said. But the deployment of United Nations forces in southern Lebanon had forced Hezbollah into built up areas where troops from the international UNIFIL force have no authority.
Not good. Note that Hezbollah fought outside built up areas for military reasons: they felt they were more effective there, because outside of population centers they were also away from informants. UNIFIL’s mission means the next war will be fought in population centers.
Somehow that does not seem to be something a UN peacekeeping operation should be ensuring.