Since 1978, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has tried to promote stability in the Lebanese south, primarily by serving as a buffer between Israel and various groups – notably Hizbollah, the Shiite party-cum-militia backed by Iran. The force’s annual mandate is up for renewal at the end of August, but the UN Security Council debate over whether to extend it looks set to be especially contentious this time around. Israel has long seen the force as ineffective at best and an enabler of Hizbollah at worst. The U.S. has echoed many of these complaints. Now, the U.S. (reportedlywith Israeli support) proposes making this mandate renewal UNIFIL’s last – in effect setting a twelve-month deadline for the force to wrap up its operations. 

That approach, however, would create unnecessary risks and miss important opportunities. UNIFIL continues to play an important if imperfect role in the regional security architecture, including by discouraging clashes between the hostile parties. Suddenly pulling the force out of the picture would roll the dice with southern Lebanon’s already precarious stability. Hastily wrapping up the mission would also make it impossible to leverage UNIFIL’s significant on-the-ground presence to help disarm Hizbollah in southern Lebanon – a key U.S. objective and one that the force is uniquely positioned to help the Lebanese army achieve. 

Rather than imposing a deadline that makes UNIFIL spend the next year focused on its withdrawal, the Security Council should proceed with a standard twelve-month renewal. To address Washington’s concerns, it should commission a comprehensive strategic review that offers recommendations for streamlining and eventually closing the mission, with the idea that as Lebanon’s army becomes more capable, UNIFIL’s role can diminish. 

In 1978, the Security Council established UNIFIL to help keep the peace in southern Lebanon, following Israel’s first invasion of its northern neighbour. UNIFIL’s mandate changed somewhat over time, but the biggest adjustment followed the 2006 Israel-Hizbollah war. In Resolution 1701 (2006), the Security Council charged UNIFIL with helping the Lebanese army disarm non-state actors near the border (chiefly Hizbollah) and monitor ceasefire violations. It also empowered the mission to host a platform, known as the “tripartite mechanism”, which facilitated indirect talks between the Israeli and Lebanese militaries about technical issues. The force itself also grew: Resolution 1701 provided for UNIFIL to expand to a maximum size of 15,000 peacekeepers, up from around 2,000 before the 2006 war began. Today, it has approximately 10,000 personnel, with troops from 47 countries.

At the same time, UNIFIL remained the “temporary custodian” of the Blue Line, as the de facto, disputed Lebanese-Israeli border has been known since Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. In this role, UNIFIL has mediated disputes between Israel and Lebanon over matters such as construction works near the border or patrols that strayed over the line. At tense moments, UNIFIL peacekeepers would often arrive at flashpoints to cool tempers. 

During the period between 2006 and 2023, Hizbollah and Israel generally practiced a form of mutual deterrence – confining themselves to minor exchanges of cross-border fire that stayed within unwritten “rules of the game”. That balance, which was already wobblywas replaced by a more dangerous status quo from 8 October 2023 onward. One day after Hamas attacked Israeli towns ringing the occupied Gaza Strip, and Israel began its assault on Gaza in response, Hizbollah entered the conflict. Proclaiming solidarity with the Palestinian people, it fired rockets at Israeli garrisons in a disputed border area known as Shebaa Farms. For almost a year afterward, Israel and Hizbollah waged a campaign of tit-for-tat retaliation, mainly along the Blue Line. Over time, the attacks grew in intensity, and the theatre widened, yet the hostilities remained contained. 

But then this relative sense of restraint collapsed as well. In mid-September 2024, Israel expanded the conflict on a massive scale. It remotely detonated hand-held communications devices belonging to Hizbollah operatives; killed many of the group’s senior leaders and fighters in airstrikes; and bombed Shiite-majority villages and city neighbourhoods where it alleged Hizbollah had concealed military assets. Then, on 1 October, Israel mounted a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

As Israeli troops advanced across the border, UNIFIL refused to evacuate its positions, choosing instead to act as a buffer. The continued presence of international troops arguably gave the Lebanese army political cover to retreat from the border arearather than staying to fulfil its core mission – to “defend the nation” – and possibly taking huge losses fighting a war that Hizbollah started and the army wanted no part of. That would have been a major blow to one of the few Lebanese institutions to have weathered years of economic and political crisis with a level of public trust – and one that is widely considered to be crucial to the country’s future stability. 

Israel saw the situation differently. It denounced UNIFIL’s action as obstructing its efforts to suppress Hizbollah, while also endangering the lives of both Israeli and UNIFIL soldiers. On 13 October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on UN Secretary-General António Guterres to move the peacekeepers out of “harm’s way”, claiming that they had become “human shields” for “Hizbollah terrorists”. The UN refused to give that order, and most of UNIFIL’s troop-contributing countries reaffirmed their support for the mission. Israeli attacks injured several UNIFIL troops and damaged various UNIFIL sites.

In practice, UNIFIL’s presence did not keep Israel from pressing its advantage. For another two months, it pummelled Hizbollah and the communities that got caught in the crossfire. In November 2024, however, Israel reached a ceasefire deal with Lebanon – Netanyahu explained that Israeli military resources were required elsewhere. Hizbollah, greatly weakened, was not a party to the ceasefire but accepted its terms, which largely mirrored those of Resolution 1701. Beyond the parties ending their cross-border fire, the agreement requires Lebanon to ensure that all non-state armed actors withdraw from the area south of the Litani River, which runs 5 to 30km north of the Blue Line; dismantle unauthorised military infrastructure throughout the country; and prevent illegal weapons from entering Lebanese territory. The pact additionally stipulated that Israel end its occupation of positions in southern Lebanon by the following February. 

The truce agreement also created a “monitoring mechanism” – a committee charged with making sure the parties meet their respective obligations – that “reformulates” and “enhances” the earlier tripartite mechanism. Unlike the tripartite mechanism, the new platform is chaired by a U.S. general; it also comprises representatives from Lebanon, Israel, France and UNIFIL. Lebanese and foreign officials say the U.S. and Israel set the committee’s agenda, meaning that it focuses on Hizbollah’s disarmament. By contrast, they say, the mechanism pays little or no attention to Israel’s continuing operations in southern Lebanon, many of which UNIFIL has recorded as violations of Resolution 1701.

The truce deal has been honoured in part. The area of greatest progress has been the disarmament effort south of the Litani, which is UNIFIL’s area of operations. Since November 2024, the Lebanese army has deployed to the south in force, dismantling hundreds of Hizbollah’s military installations and confiscating many of its assets, seemingly with its acquiescence. As disarmament has gathered steam, UNIFIL’s role has started to evolve. In May, UNIFIL announced that it had transferred 225 weapons caches to the Lebanese army – a task it had never taken on before, as Hizbollah would not cooperate – and it has continued to conduct major weapons searches since. By late June, UNIFIL claimed that it had doubled the frequency of its support activities for the Lebanese army, compared with before the war. 

But other aspects of the truce are going less well. Putting an implausible gloss on the November 2024 agreement, Hizbollah claims that it requires Lebanon (and, by extension, Hizbollah) to dismantle unauthorised military infrastructure only in the area south of the Litani, rather than throughout the country. By contrast, the new Lebanese president and government, installed in early 2025, have both pledged to bring all military-grade weapons under state control. While for months they chose not to push this issue too hard with Hizbollah – conscious that the group would see full disarmament as an existential threat and might lash out – their approach has seemingly changed. In early August, under considerable U.S. diplomatic pressure, the government announced plans to assert the state’s monopoly over arms throughout the country (ie, not just in the south) by year’s end. Hizbollah rejected the decision outright and, as Crisis Group has noted elsewhere, it could seek to derail the disarmament process.

For its part, Israel has continued to conduct near-daily strikes on alleged Hizbollah targets in southern Lebanon, as well as attacking sites elsewhere in the country. While these operations are widely seen as breaching the agreement, Israel justifies them with reference to its “inherent right to self-defence”, which the truce deal acknowledges, and claims that it is preventing Hizbollah from rebuilding its fighting strength. Israel has also ignored its ceasefire obligation to withdraw all its troops from southern Lebanon, saying it will keep them at several “strategic points” there until it is satisfied that the Lebanese army has asserted full control of the border region. In June, the Lebanese army threatened to stop working with the monitoring mechanism, on the grounds that Israel continues to breach the truce without regard for the body, but it has not followed through on the threat. In late July, far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that Israel will never cede the occupied positions, irrespective of Lebanon’s progress on disarmament.

The changed circumstances in southern Lebanon have put UNIFIL under a spotlight and emboldened the mission’s detractors.

Perhaps UNIFIL’s leading critic is Lebanon’s neighbour to the south. Hizbollah’s prosecution of the latest war from southern Lebanon lent fresh impetus to Israel’s longstanding accusation that the peacekeeping mission was failing to do its job. Before war broke out in October 2023, Israel repeatedly accused UNIFIL of doing too little to prevent Hizbollah’s military build-up in southern Lebanon. (UN officials concede that UNIFIL has historically downplayed Hizbollah infractions in order to avoid confrontations with the group or its supporters in southern Lebanon.) 

Moreover, while Israel previously saw UNIFIL as playing a somewhat useful diplomatic role, the recent war altered that perspective. From 2006-2023, Israel’s military used the UNIFIL-hosted “tripartite mechanism” to discuss technical matters with the Lebanese state, which typically avoids direct communication with Israel, its declared enemy. But now, Israel sees the U.S.-chaired monitoring mechanism as a more effective channel. In general, Israel provides intelligence about alleged Hizbollah assets to the committee, which then instructs the Lebanese army to get rid of them. Thus, from Israel’s perspective, even UNIFIL’s diplomatic functions have now become obsolete. 

UNIFIL has also drawn direct attacks from the U.S., Israel’s principal ally, for being both too expensive and ineffective. Since assuming office in January, the Trump administration has launched broadsides against UN peacekeeping missions around the world, claiming that they offer little value for the money. In late June, when the UN General Assembly approved the same budget for UNIFIL as it had allocated in 2024, the U.S. cast one of only three dissenting votes. In July, at the White House’s request, the Republican-led Congress rescinded U.S. funding previously earmarked for various UN peacekeeping missions, including UNIFIL. In requesting the UNIFIL rescission, the administration lambasted what it called the mission’s “abject failure … to contain Hizbollah”. The stage was thus set for the wind-up proposal that the U.S. delegation has now shared within the Council.

Finally, UNIFIL has critics within its area of operations. To be sure, Lebanon’s political leadership wants to see UNIFIL continue operating on existing terms. On 27 June, the government requested that the Security Council renew UNIFIL’s mandate, noting that it “remains essential to maintaining stability and security in southern Lebanon and to supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces”. In the south, however, residents sometimes angrily confront the mission’s patrols, invoking Hizbollah’s longstanding argument that UN troops are only in the country to support the Lebanese army and must always be accompanied by military escorts. Since the ceasefire, these incidents have generally been minor, if increasingly frequent. But in the past they have been more serious: a December 2022 clash resulted in the murder of an Irish UNIFIL peacekeeper. Hizbollah and the allied Amal party have denied involvement in the recent standoffs, with Amal chief Nabih Berri asking southern residents not to “overreact” to what they perceive as UNIFIL exceeding its powers. 

The U.S. proposal to the Security Council contemplates ending UNIFIL’s operations swiftly. As a veto-wielding permanent member, the U.S. could block any alternative Security Council resolution that fails to meet its demands. But hurriedly forcing UNIFIL to shut down – or even pushing through sweeping changes at the negotiating table – would be a potentially serious mistake. 

While UNIFIL has faced broad criticism, the mission performs essential roles that counsel for its continuation, at least for now. First, the mission is a calming international presence in southern Lebanon at a time of high tensions. Despite the ceasefire, the region has remained under near-daily Israeli bombardment. (Militants in southern Lebanon have fired rockets toward northern Israel, too – though only three times, doing no damage.) Israel also appears set to keep occupying what it calls “strategic points” in southern Lebanon indefinitely. In these circumstances, UNIFIL’s presence is an imperfect but useful device for discouraging Hizbollah’s re-emergence in the borderlands or a new surge of Israeli ground troops.

Secondly, UNIFIL remains the institution best placed to assist the Lebanese army and the monitoring mechanism as they work to fulfil the terms of the ceasefire deal and Resolution 1701. While the Lebanese army may need UNIFIL’s general infantry support less these days, it still requires assistance in high-stakes technical areas, including the safe disposal of unexploded ordnance. UNIFIL also provides aerial and naval monitoring services while Lebanon’s armed forces continue to build their capacity in these areas.

Further, UNIFIL could continue to take on new roles in support of the monitoring mechanism. Since the ceasefire, the mission has demonstrated its capacity for locating and transferring unauthorised military assets to the Lebanese army. Moving forward, UNIFIL could keep going with these search operations, as well as independently verify the Lebanese army’s successes in dismantling unauthorised military infrastructure. Given that the monitoring mechanism lacks troops of its own – and the U.S. has made clear that it has no intention of putting boots on the ground in Lebanon – the UN mission is perhaps the only body that realistically can assume these tasks. But UNIFIL will struggle to complete these valuable assignments if ordered to focus on winding up its own operations, as suggested by the U.S. proposal. According to UN estimates, removing all UNIFIL’s equipment from southern Lebanon alone would take around two years.

None of the above is to argue that the mission is beyond reform. Indeed, streamlining makes sense. In 2006, UNIFIL received a greatly expanded mandate and resources largely because, at the time, the Lebanese military lacked the capacity to assert its authority in southern Lebanon. But since the November 2024 ceasefire, donors have redoubled efforts to bolster the army, which has already started increasing its presence in the south. As it does so, the Security Council should be looking to proportionally scale back UNIFIL’s size and operations. 

It would also be appropriate to begin thinking about the prospect of an orderly transition of UNIFIL’s functions to the Lebanese state, given that, like any peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL should be a temporary fix. But these are things that will require more planning than is possible between now and the mandate renewal deadline.

Against this backdrop, the best course of action would be for the Security Council to extend UNIFIL’s mandate for a further year. The resolution should leave open the possibility of further renewals for now, so that the force can spend the next twelve months supporting implementation of the November truce rather than merely powering down. To reinforce the importance of that work, Lebanon should commit to guaranteeing UNIFIL freedom of movement and shielding the mission’s peacekeepers from harassment by locals. 

The resolution should stipulate that, following renewal, the Council will commission a detailed strategic review to examine UNIFIL’s role in Lebanon’s new security landscape. In exploring potential streamlining measures, member states should bear in mind that the most responsible way to reduce UNIFIL’s role is to build up the army’s capability through increased bilateral support. The army needs to reach a point where it can maintain order by itself in the country’s south, while attending to its important duties elsewhere – including overseeing disarmament operations north of the Litani and securing the porous Syrian-Lebanese border. To address U.S. concerns, the strategic review should also begin to elaborate a roadmap for UNIFIL’s eventual closure.

Looking further ahead, member states should recognise that a safe end to UNIFIL’s mission is almost certainly contingent on a permanent cessation of hostilities between Israel and parties in Lebanon, as well as the resolution of disputes over the neighbours’ land border. The Secretary-General sees a role for UNIFIL here: he has called upon the parties to restore the tripartite mechanism, with UNIFIL at its head, to facilitate the border talks. Yet the tripartite mechanism focused on technical military matters, not political ones. 

Addressing complex diplomatic negotiations sits within the purview of the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, which has a mandate to engage the political leadership in both Israel and Lebanon. To give the office a boost, the Council could include language in the renewal resolution that expressly acknowledges the need for Israeli and Lebanese leaders to tackle these challenging divisions and encourages the Special Coordinator to help them do so. 

Under this multi-faceted approach, UNIFIL would provide peacekeeping support to the army and monitoring mechanism; donors would continue building up the army; and the Special Coordinator would drive forward cross-border diplomacy. Through these coordinated efforts, these various actors would help usher southern Lebanon closer to the moment when it finally does not need UNIFIL anymore.