UNIFIL and International Incompetence in Restraining Hezbollah

As the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel has continued for close to a year, the U.N. Security Council recently renewed the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon or UNIFIL) for another year. The contradiction between the text approved in the U.N., and the reality on the ground could not have been more staggering, as keeping, or more likely reestablishing calm along the Israeli-Lebanese border seems far beyond the capabilities of UNIFIL. 

UNIFIL was originally established in 1978 to monitor Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon after it carried out an operation against Palestinian terror groups in the area. Nevertheless, in the current context, the force derives its authority and missions from U.N. Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 1701, which was approved in 2006 and was the final chapter of the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah. 

The force, which includes some 10000 men from 50 different countries and costs $500 million per year, is charged to “assist” and “support” the Lebanese Army (LAF) to enforce UNSC 1701, which calls for the disarmament of any non-state military presence in south Lebanon. The infrastructures Hezbollah used to launch its attacks on Israel since last October are a clear sign of UNIFIL's failure to fulfill its mission over the years. 

The international community ignored Israel’s repeated warnings regarding Hezbollah’s military activities in the area, and even after it exposed numerous tunnels dug by Hezbollah into Israel's territory in 2018, no action was taken on the Lebanese side, even though UNIFIL acknowledged the Israeli claims. 

The long-standing incompetence of the international community to enforce its decision to prevent Hezbollah’s presence in southern Lebanon, even though UNIFIL maintains considerable military capabilities in the area, is a result of several elements. 

First and foremost, UNIFIL, according to its mandate, can only “assist” LAF actions in southern Lebanon and is forbidden to operate independently to enforce UNSC 1701. As the Lebanese government and LAF refrain from taking any action against Hezbollah’s military activities in the area, UNIFIL's hands are legally tied. In 2006, while drafting UNSC 1701, American officials failed to convince Lebanon's government to allow UNIFIL to act as an independent force under the Security Council Chapter 7 authorities and the Lebanese firm objection to any change in the force mandate repeated itself last week as Lebanon’s foreign minister insisted that the extension of its mandate will be done without any modifications. 

Lebanon’s government's years-long lack of action to restrain Hezbollah, either directly or by allowing UNIFIL to operate independently, is the direct outcome of two factors that are tightly connected: the organization's overwhelming influence on the state institutions and its aggressive use of force in response to the last government attempt to hinder its interests in May 2008, which ended up with Hezbollah forces taking over large parts of Beirut in a de facto military coup.

At the same time, Hezbollah is actively “messaging” UNIFIL’s forces on the ground not to even try and limit its activities in southern Lebanon. Over the years, violent incidents led to the death and injury of UNIFIL personnel, but none of those involved were ever brought to justice by the Lebanese legal system. Last year’s release without any charges of five suspected Hezbollah operatives connected to the murder of an Irish UNIFIL soldier was another example of Lebanon’s authorities’ incompetence in demanding any accountability from Hezbollah. 

International expectations that Lebanon’s state institutions will be able, or even willing, to impose any limitations on Hezbollah’s terror activities against Israel in southern Lebanon must be disabused.  It has been proven over and over that even when it comes to the most consequential domestic issues, such as Hezbollah’s terrorists’ proven responsibility for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 or Hezbollah’s efforts to foil the investigation of the catastrophic Beirut port explosion in 2020, the local government is always unable to confront Hezbollah. 

Ambassador Wood, the U.S. representative in the latest Security Council session over the renewal of the UNIFIL mandate, spoke with clear words regarding how the future of UNIFIL operations in southern Lebanon should look: “Going forward, we need to address how Hezbollah, and other malign actors in Lebanon, prevent the full implementation of Resolution 1701, constrain UNIFIL’s ability to operate freely, and threaten UN peacekeepers’ safety and security.”

Unfortunately, it appears that turning Wood’s call into reality will be impossible under the current political circumstances in Lebanon. As long as the international community seeks Beirut’s cooperation to restrain Hezbollah’s terror activity in southern Lebanon, those efforts are doomed to fail. 

Only international, or at least Western, acknowledgment that Lebanon is a de facto failed state controlled by Hezbollah and that its territory is used to promote Iran’s regime’s regional destabilizing policies, will lay the groundwork to debate alternative means to secure peace along the border between Israel and Lebanon. 

Dror Doron is a senior advisor at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) focusing on Hezbollah and Lebanon.  He spent nearly two decades as a senior analyst in the Office of Israel’s Prime Minister. Dror is on Twitter @DrorDoron.