The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has utterly failed in its core mission of monitoring Hezbollah’s activities in southern Lebanon and enforcing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which bans non-government military forces in Southern Lebanon (U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 calls for the disbanding of all non-state armed forces anywhere in Lebanon).
The intended role of UNIFIL was to ensure that 1701 was being upheld, monitor violations and ensure that Hezbollah did not re-arm and re-establish its military capabilities south of the Litani River after the 2006 Lebanon War. However, in practice, the force has become a passive bystander and, more disturbingly, a human shield for Hezbollah’s attacks on the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli civilians. This is becoming disruptive to IDF operations in Southern Lebanon.
UNIFIL’s mandate was first established in 1978 and later enhanced in 2006 through Resolution 1701. The primary goal was to assist the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in creating a buffer zone between the Blue Line (the Lebanese-Israeli border) and the Litani River, free of any armed personnel other than Lebanese and UNIFIL forces. Resolution 1701 also called for the disarmament of all militias, including Hezbollah. Despite these mandates, Hezbollah’s military infrastructure has only grown massively over the years—and UNIFIL failed to notice or document this in any of its reports, turning its activities into a farce.
In December 2022, an Irish UNIFIL soldier was shot and killed during a peacekeeping mission, and a second critically injured, after a hostile Lebanese crowd surrounded their armored vehicle. The incident followed an intimidation campaign by Hezbollah against UNIFIL to prevent it from monitoring its activities.
As the Alma Center noted in a report in July, Hezbollah’s operations near the Blue Line, backed by Iran, have restricted UNIFIL’s movements and increased their harassment over recent years. UNIFIL’s operational access has been blocked by Hezbollah forces and those acting under Hezbollah instructions, leaving the peacekeeping force unable to fulfill its mission of ensuring a disarmed buffer zone.
Worse yet, Hezbollah has increasingly positioned its military sites near UNIFIL posts, using the peacekeepers as a shield. On Oct. 13, 2024, IDF International Spokesperson Nadav Shoshani detailed a disturbing pattern of Hezbollah attacks launched from positions near UNIFIL posts. This strategy is designed to exploit the IDF’s reluctance to strike areas near peacekeeping forces, thereby granting Hezbollah cover for its attacks. Shoshani recounted multiple incidents in which Hezbollah’s fire came from areas adjacent to UNIFIL posts, including one event, on Oct. 6, that resulted in the deaths of two IDF soldiers.
Shoshani also described the IDF’s attempts to keep UNIFIL personnel out of harm’s way. In multiple cases, the IDF communicated directly with UNIFIL to warn them of upcoming operations and advise them to stay in protected areas. However, Shoshani noted that despite these warnings, UNIFIL personnel sometimes left their posts, increasing their exposure to the crossfire between Hezbollah and the IDF.
Hezbollah’s use of UNIFIL as a human shield not only endangers the peacekeeping force but also hampers Israel’s ability to defend itself from Hezbollah’s aggression. On Oct. 12, according to Shoshani, an IDF tank carrying wounded soldiers backed a few meters into a UNIFIL post because it was under fire and dealing with a mass-casualty event involving the evacuation of dozens of wounded soldiers.
“Again we were communicating with them. They [UNIFIL] were in their safe area. No UNIFIL people were in danger at the time of the event because of our communications with them,” he stressed. “Every time we operate in the area against Hezbollah, we give them [UNIFIL] a heads up to make sure they have a chance to get out of harm’s way or to go to the safe areas that they have in their posts.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s Oct. 13 visit to Israel’s northern border further underscores the severity of Hezbollah’s military buildup in Southern Lebanon, which was totally ignored by UNIFIL and absent from its annual reports.
Gallant toured IDF operations aimed at dismantling Hezbollah’s tunnels and weapon stockpiles, which included hundreds of RPGs, munitions and anti-tank missiles. Hezbollah has established extensive military infrastructure in Southern Lebanon, including sophisticated missile-launching systems capable of targeting Israeli civilians with pinpoint accuracy. Don’t expect to find any of these weapons or plans for a mass-murder invasion of northern Israel in UNIFIL’s reports.
Gallant emphasized the IDF’s mission to dismantle these immediate threats, noting that Hezbollah launchers, located in civilian areas, could strike Israeli homes in seconds. Yet, UNIFIL has consistently overlooked these violations.
UNIFIL’s inability to prevent Hezbollah from rearming and operating freely in southern Lebanon has rendered its mission a failure. As such, its two logical choices should be to either leave the area, where it is doing more harm than good, or to seriously reform. The status quo, in which an international community convinces itself that its faux peacekeepers are contributing to stability in Lebanon, should not continue, as it has benefited Hezbollah almost exclusively.
The mounting evidence of Hezbollah’s exploitation of UNIFIL positions, combined with the force’s inability to report or monitor these violations, demonstrates that UNIFIL’s presence is not only ineffective but dangerous.
The situation calls for immediate decisions. UNIFIL must either adapt to the current realities on the ground or withdraw entirely from Southern Lebanon. A reformed UNIFIL, as suggested by the Alma Center in July, would involve a shift from its current model of a large force of 10,000 personnel to a more agile, reporting-driven approach. This would involve developing capabilities for Access, Reporting and Communication (ARC), allowing UNIFIL to monitor and report violations in real time, rather than serving as a static and vulnerable presence.
However, any discussion of dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure will likely require international supervision beyond UNIFIL, which has proven unwilling to confront Hezbollah directly.
Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former U.S. Army officer who taught at West Point, stated on a webinar on Oct. 3, “What’s going to happen when the IDF leaves? Well of course we know what’s going to happen: Hezbollah is going to move back in, and you can’t count on the UNIFIL forces to do anything of course, if past is prologue. So that means Israel will have to have the means, the weapons, and the political permission, if you will, to periodically go back into Lebanon as necessary to take things out. And that’s where the United States comes in.”