No blue berets allowed: South Lebanon and the end of UNIFIL
Summary: the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is to be wound down by end 2026, after nearly 50 years. Its withdrawal will leave a dangerous vacuum, with no third party to mediate or report violations, while Israel has fragrantly violated the 27 November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah more than 10,000 times over the past year.
We thank Paul Cochrane for today’s newsletter. Paul is an independent journalist covering the Middle East and Africa. He writes regularly for Middle East Eye, Money Laundering Bulletin, Fraud Intelligence, and other specialised titles. Paul lived in Bilad Al Sham (Cyprus, Palestine and Lebanon) for 24 years, mainly in Beirut. He co-directed We Made Every Living Thing from Water, a documentary on the political economy of water in Lebanon.
A year on from the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) continues to violate Lebanese sovereignty on a daily basis by drone or fighter jet, as well as by ground incursions from the five positions and two so-called buffer zones the IDF holds in the South. The latest major violation of the ceasefire was the assassination of Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s chief of staff, in the Dahiyeh, Beirut, and an attack on a Palestinian refugee camp that killed 13 civilians.
Under the US and French-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the one year war that killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, the IDF was supposed to withdraw from the South by 26 January 2025. Instead, since the ceasefire began, the IDF has carried out over 7,500 air violations, almost 2,500 ground violations, fired some 950 projectiles and 100 airstrikes, according to UNIFIL, while more than 330 people have been killed and about 945 wounded, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported. A reported 21 projectiles were fired from the Lebanese side, one claimed by Hezbollah, over the past year, while no Israelis have been killed.
Despite the violations, Beirut has repeatedly called for talks with the Israelis, which have been rebuffed, while the parliament made a landmark decision in early August to disarm all non-state armed groups, including Hezbollah, and for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to have a monopoly on arms within the country. Beirut’s move followed major US pressure to do so, and was contingent on the Israelis fully pulling out of the South. The LAF, under a five-stage process, is to first disarm Hezbollah in the South, and then carry out disarmament of all groups in the rest of Lebanon.
Unsurprisingly the move faced major push-back from Hezbollah, although under the ceasefire, the group did agree to disarm South of the Litani River, while following the parliamentary decision, it expressed approval for “gradual” disarmament that is “conditional on Israel’s commitment”. The head of Hezbollah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, did warn at the time, and repeatedly since, that implementation of the “American-Israeli order [to disarm]” may “lead to civil war and internal strife”.
This is part of the problem. Beirut comes across as caving in to US and Israeli demands without getting anything in return, including an actual ceasefire. The Israelis can strike anywhere in Lebanon at will, with no repercussions. This only reinforces Hezbollah’s position that resistance is still needed.
Crucially, Lebanon lacks the abilities to carry out these demands without further coming across as US lackeys. For the LAF to do its job in the South, it needs major support, which the US has promised, but that compromises Beirut and adds fuel to the resistance’s arguments. And if the US does provide much-needed funds for the reconstruction of the war-torn South and to bolster the overall economy, the Serail also looks as if it is in the US pocket.
Further pulling of the rug from under the Lebanese parliament’s feet was the UN Security Council adopting in late August Resolution 2790 extending the mandate of UNIFIL for a final time until 31 December 2026. The move will phase-out a 47-year presence, since 1978, that has seen an estimated 348,000 blue berets from multiple countries carry out peacekeeping missions in the South.
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UNIFIL peacekeepers and the LAF conduct daily patrols to prevent escalation and help restore stability in south Lebanon [photo credit: UNIFIL]The move to end UNIFIL came following a prolonged campaign by the Israelis and pro-Zionist bodies in the US, such as the American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Institute, JINSA and the Foundation for Defence of Democracies. As Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations at the UN, wrote in response to arguments to disband UNIFIL, it “operates on the misconception that peacekeepers are deployed to impose a settlement on a crisis. UNIFIL was never mandated to disarm Hezbollah … Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, gave the force a different role: to assist Israel and Lebanon in implementing its provisions, including cessation of hostilities, Israeli withdrawal, extension of Lebanese state authority and disarmament of armed groups.”
UNIFIL has long been considered a thorn in the Israelis’ side, despite the blue berets being on only one side of the border. Tel Aviv has long wanted no third party documenting its violations – which it succeeded to do in Gaza, keeping out external observers, and the media, so it could carry out a genocidal war – or to deal with the diplomatic fallout when UNIFIL contingents are attacked by the IDF, which has happened repeatedly over the past four decades, on occasion with deadly consequences (UNIFIL has reported 326 fatalities, the majority killed by the IDF).
The irony is that the conditions to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the July 2006 war, have never been as promising. As a senior member of UNIFIL told me off-the-record, “1701 could be implemented if there’s a stronger government, UNIFIL in the South plus 10,000 LAF troops, and the Israelis move back to the demarcation line. Instead nothing has been implemented, and we’re almost back to square one again, to 1978. It couldn’t be worse.”
While the LAF has more than 8,000 soldiers deployed in over 120 positions in the South, it cannot yet operationally replace the current 10,000 UNIFIL troops (some 2,400 are being drawn down). Indicative of the cash-strapped LAF’s struggles is that it has around 40% operational capacity, while UNIFIL has provided the cash-strapped army with some 100 vehicles and on occasion fuel for patrols, said the source.
The LAF are also hamstrung when it comes to disarmament, as army command has acknowledged. “The LAF can’t surround a village and say not a single bullet can be left in it. Who are they? Some soldiers may be from the same village. It can happen. They cannot fight their own families. The US should know this. These goals need time. If the Israelis were wise enough they should withdraw completely, leave it to the Lebanese authorities, and give no reason to the resistance if they are no longer occupying forces on the land. But the Israelis think the international community is with them since 7 October 2023,” said the UNIFIL source.
Furthermore, once UNIFIL completely withdraws there will be no third party monitoring of cross-border activity. “If the Israelis cross the border or kidnap a shepherd, who will report this? No one. With UNIFIL, this is passed on to the liaison branch, who tell Tel Aviv, and there are negotiations,” said the source.
This is exactly what the Israelis want, and for the South to become unliveable. The withdrawal of UNIFIL will leave a gaping hole in the South’s economy, with the force’s budget of $550 million trickling into the economy from spending by UNIFIL troops, the 300 international staff in Tyre, and the locals employed.
“On top of the economic impact, the security and confidence among the local population will be hit directly. The UN troops’ presence is an encouragement to people living in Bint Jbeil or wherever to remain and re-build homes, and to start projects that provide jobs. The decision to end UNIFIL is disastrous,” said the source.
The glimmer of hope is that there is still time to overturn Resolution 2790 and for UNIFIL to remain in some form or another. European nations have indicated such willingness, including for funding – which is a gripe of the US, which has withdrawn funding – for peacekeeping operations to continue. But the Israelis have the upper hand, and must be rubbing their hands with glee that UNIFIL is on the way out, despite tensions remaining high and talk of further escalation abounding on both sides of the border.
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