UNIFIL – as ineffective as ever

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 14 October 2024

            “The force has repeatedly failed its mission and squandered its credibility” – that is the uncompromising verdict on UNIFIL in the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s paper of August 24, 2024.

The supreme irony of the situation lies in the very title of the body – the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.  Never was an organization less interim than UNIFIL.  Today, 46 years after it was established by the UN Security Council, it is still in place.  Originally a 4,500-strong peacekeeping mission, it now comprises some 10,000 troops drawn from up to 50 countries.  And, irony on irony, the one thing the interim force has failed to do throughout its 46 years is keep the peace.

          A glance at the map of Lebanon shows the Litani river running north to south down the country, and then taking a sharp right-hand turn toward the Mediterranean.  The territory lying between the river and the Lebanon-Israel border to its south, varying in width between 6 and 28 km, is where the numerous UNIFIL bases are located.

Expelled from Jordan in 1970, the PLO under Yasser Arafat settled itself in Lebanon.  It took control of the southern region, turned it into a militarized zone, and used it as a base for attacking Israel.  On March 11, 1978 a PLO group landed by sea near Tel Aviv and hijacked a bus on the Coastal Highway. They then went on a shooting rampage, killing 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, and wounding over 70 others.  Three days later Israel invaded Lebanon in an effort to push the PLO back over the Litani and away from its northern border.

In response the UN Security Council (UNSC) called on Israel to withdraw, and set up UNIFIL.  Its remit was to confirm Israel’s withdrawal, restore peace and security, and assist Lebanon’s government regain effective authority in the south – a rather difficult aspiration, since Lebanon was then three years into its long-running civil war – a power struggle between Shia and Sunni Muslims, Christians and Palestinians.

 Following the arrival of UNIFIL, Israeli withdrew from most of the territory it had occupied. It left its Christian militia allies, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), in control of a strip of territory well south of the Litani river, in which they established a "security zone".  This they maintained until Israel’s full withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

Despite the presence of UNIFIL, which seemed incapable of exercising any sort of control, the PLO quickly reestablished itself south of the Litani, and continued launching cross-border attacks and rocket fire into northern Israel. In response, Israel conducted air raids and artillery strikes on Palestinian positions.  

Then, on June 3, 1982 in the center of London, a breakaway Palestinian terrorist group attempted to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Shlomo Argov.  He was critically injured, and was in a coma for three months.  The incident was sufficient to trigger a large-scale military operation against the PLO, undertaken in coordination with Lebanese Christian militias.

          Israeli troops crossed the Lebanese border, advanced up the country and soon reached Beirut. Once there they captured PLO headquarters and ordered the PLO out of the country. 

The departure of the PLO did not, unfortunately, mean that UNIFIL could be disbanded.  For it was in that same year, 1982, that Hezbollah was founded, with the active support of Iran and its IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).  Its prime declared purpose was to remove Israel, and all other foreign entities, from Lebanese soil. 

          UNIFIL’s mandate did not directly include confronting non-state militias – a factor that has doubtless contributed to UNFILF’s ineffectiveness over the years. Hezbollah, on the other hand, while never formally engaging with UNIFIL, has consistently obstructed or interfered with its activities. Ever since 2020, Hezbollah has been establishing and strengthening its military footprint in the heart of UNIFIL’s area of operations. Worse, in June 2007, a car bomb killed six UNIFIL members and wounded two others. In December 2022, five Hezbollah-linked militants were charged with conspiracy and murder in a shooting attack that killed an Irish UNIFIL peacekeeper and injured three others.

          On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah operatives ambushed an IDF patrol along the Israel-Lebanon border, killing eight soldiers and kidnapping two others. Israel responded with precision air strikes on Hezbollah assets, prompting the launch over the next month of some 4,000 Katyusha rockets targeting northern Israeli cities.

Passed in August 2006, UNSC Resolution 1701 ended the hostilities, expanded UNIFIL, required Lebanon to assert its sovereignty in the south, forbade the rearming of terrorist groups, and required the “unconditional release” of the kidnapped soldiers — whose bodies Hezbollah only returned as part of a 2008 prisoner exchange with Israel.

UNIFIL was either incapable or unwilling to exercise its expanded powers.  As a result its presence in ever-increasing numbers has done nothing to prevent Hezbollah taking over the whole of south Lebanon, and allowing it to become the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor, with much of its arsenal concentrated in UNIFIL’s area of operations.

UNIFIL’s mandate has to be renewed on an annual basis. During a visit to Israel in late November 2023, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto called for a “thorough re-evaluation” of UNIFIL’s mission,

citing cross-border attacks on Israel by Hezbollah as an indication that it was not working as intended. The “rules of engagement need to change,” he said.  Nevertheless in August UNFIL’s mandate was again renewed with no significant changes beyond a renewed emphasis on the need for coordination between UNIFIL and the Lebanese government.  Once again Hezbollah did not feature in the resolution.

There are some 10,000 UNIFIL troops deployed across southern Lebanon.  They have done virtually nothing to control the persistent bombardment of Israel over the past year, or to fulfil their remit to push Hezbollah north of the Litani. Since Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, up to 80,000 residents of northern Israel have had to evacuate their homes.  There could therefore have been little surprise in UNIFIL headquarters when, on September 30, the IDF notified the force commander of their intention to undertake limited ground incursions into Lebanon.  

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN undersecretary-general for peace operations, told reporters that UNIFIL will remain in its positions in south Lebanon despite Israel’s request that it vacates some areas before it launched its ground operation against Hezbollah. 

          By staying put all UNIFIL is doing is to expose its troops to possible collateral death or injury, and indeed two peacekeepers were injured when IDF fire damaged a UNIFIL observation post on October 9.   

In short, having failed notably over decades to fulfil its peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL  now has units scattered across a battlefield, and has turned into a positive liability.  As Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the people of Lebanon in his TV talk on October 8, a peaceful future for Lebanon depends on freeing themselves from the burden of Hezbollah.   For Lebanon once again to enjoy peace and a positive future, Israel’s effort to overcome Hezbollah needs to succeed.  

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and Jerusalem Post online titled: "UNIFIL is ineffective and fails to fulfill its peacekeeping mission", 14 October 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-824433