The United Nations Completely Failed in Lebanon

How a U.N. peacekeeping mission may have inadvertently produced Israel’s next war.

By Anchal Vohra, a columnist at Foreign Policy.

Hamas’s attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7 may have also changed its relationship with its northern neighbor forever. Some 80,000 Israelis from northern Israel have left their homes since the start of the war against Hamas, fleeing missile attacks by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah—and in fear that Hezbollah could carry out a similar attack to the one made by Hamas, only at a much larger scale. That has put pressure on the Israeli government to destroy Hezbollah and its arsenal. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has warned of war, saying Israel would “act with all the means at its disposal” unless the international community compels Hezbollah to withdraw.

Hamas’s attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7 may have also changed its relationship with its northern neighbor forever. Some 80,000 Israelis from northern Israel have left their homes since the start of the war against Hamas, fleeing missile attacks by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah—and in fear that Hezbollah could carry out a similar attack to the one made by Hamas, only at a much larger scale. That has put pressure on the Israeli government to destroy Hezbollah and its arsenal. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has warned of war, saying Israel would “act with all the means at its disposal” unless the international community compels Hezbollah to withdraw.

The Israeli government also regularly reminds observers that it was never supposed to come to this. U.N. Resolution 1701, which has been in force since 2006, was supposed to ensure the removal of Hezbollah to north of the Litani River, about 20 miles from the demarcation zone between Lebanon and Hezbollah known as the Blue Line.

“If 1701 had not failed, we wouldn’t be in the current situation,” Jonathan Conricus, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, told me as sirens bellowed in Tel Aviv, and I could hear several loud boom sounds, even over the phone. “It’s a long and sad story of failure,” he said of the resolution. “On paper, it would have been able to prevent the third war with Lebanon,” he said, referring to the potential war now feared. “On paper, it would have removed Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.”

In 1978, Israel launched the first of two invasions of Lebanon to push the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) north of the Litani River—and also to limit infiltrations and attacks. In the aftermath of that invasion, the United Nations created an Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to confirm Israeli withdrawal and restore international peace and security. Israelis, however, returned in 1982, and in 2006 another conflict broke out, this time between Israel and Hezbollah.

At the end of that 34-day conflict, the U.N. updated UNIFIL’s mandate under Resolution 1701 and tasked it with establishing “an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL,” between the Blue Line and the Litani River.

But since 2006, Hezbollah has instead fortified southern Lebanon, particularly towns and villages along the 120-kilometer-long (about 75-mile-long) demarcation line. It has built unauthorized firing ranges, stocked rockets in civilian infrastructure, built tunnels into Israel, and repeatedly stopped UNIFIL from accessing certain areas. The fact that southern Lebanon is mostly populated by Shiites—many of whom support Hezbollah—has created a security and intelligence buffer for Hezbollah.

UNFIL blames a limited mandate. It has been sent under the authority of Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter—which allows it to investigate any dispute that may endanger international peace and security—rather than Chapter VII, which empowers the troops to enforce the resolution with military action.

“We have been sent here under UNSC’s [U.N. Security Council’s] Chapter VI, which means we can do only what the Lebanese government asks us to do,” a senior official with the U.N. told Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity, considering the sensitivity of the matter. “UNSC’s Chapter VII is when, basically, the UNSC tells the host country you can’t handle the situation, and so we are sending a force to do it.”

Sources in Israel and within the U.N. told Foreign Policy that UNIFIL could have achieved more had the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) wanted it to. The text of Resolution 1701 states that UNIFIL troops will “assist” the —meaning that UNIFIL functions at the pleasure and request of the Lebanese government, which must grant the troops yearly extensions.

“We have never denied that there are weapons in that area [between the Blue Line and the Litani River], but we would go in and support the Lebanese army if they called us and said they found a cache of weapons and needed our help in removing it,” added the U.N. official. “But they have never asked us.”

The latest report of the U.N. secretary-general on the resolution admits that the LAF has denied UNIFIL access to patrol key areas “on the grounds that they were either private roads or areas of strategic importance to the Lebanese Armed Forces.”

The IDF calls this collusion between Hezbollah and the LAF, and the IDF spokesperson’s office told Foreign Policy that since Oct. 7, several attacks against Israel were launched from near LAF and U.N. posts in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese army’s support to Hezbollah gives Israel what it sees as a justification to attack all of Lebanon, but the LAF itself has assisted Hezbollah not only out of a sense of camaraderie against a supposed foreign threat—Israel, after all, has invaded Lebanon multiple times—but also out of fear of a civil war between Hezbollah supporters among the Shiites and other groups in the tiny nation.

Furthermore, a limited U.N. mandate and dependence on the LAF are not the only reasons that Hezbollah managed to dig its heels in the south despite the presence of thousands of peacekeepers.

“Over the years, Hezbollah systematically dismantled 1701; it neutered UNIFIL by bullying its troops or physically attacking them while it entrenched itself in civilian locations, and as the Lebanese state became weaker it enhanced its dominance over the Lebanese Armed Forces,” added Conricus, the IDF spokesperson.

The U.N. secretary-general’s report this year acknowledged several attacks against its peacekeepers, but did so without directly blaming Hezbollah. It is widely understood that Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon—and that nothing happens there, certainly when it concerns UNIFIL’s peacekeepers, without Hezbollah’s knowledge or orders.

Israelis also suspect that the more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 47 nations who were expected to demilitarize southern Lebanon are deterred by such attacks and lack the will to challenge Hezbollah, especially when they are not fighting for their own country but rather in a distant conflict far away from their homelands.

Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of Alma Research and Education Center, an Israeli think tank, lives about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the border with Lebanon. “The UNIFIL says they don’t have the mandate. Let’s say a solution is found and they have a new mandate that authorizes them to go home to home and take out Hezbollah’s rockets. Will they do it? They won’t, because Hezbollah will kill them,” she told Foreign Policy over the phone from Upper Galilee, a region near the border. “The Lebanese army won’t do it because Hezbollah are his brothers and sisters,” she added. “We have only one option.”

Members of the Israeli government say the goal is to end Hezbollah’s presence and destroy its infrastructure on the border and at this stage, Israel trying to achieve this through diplomatic channels.

“We are turning to every normal country, be it the United States, France, Arab countries—anyone who could somehow influence the situation and has some influence in Lebanon,” Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told news agency Reuters.

U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein is reportedly proposing a deal to resolve long-standing territorial differences on the Israeli-Lebanese border and achieve peac. But Hezbollah has ruled out any deal, for now. Naim Qassem, the deputy chief of the group, said the Lebanese front would remain open as long as the aggression against the Gaza Strip continues. Lebanese experts interpret this as at least a partial willingness to talk once the endgame in Gaza is clearer and talk of a more sustainable deal between Israelis and Palestinians is being discussed.

“What Hezbollah will do comes down to one question—what does Iran want?” said Sami Nader, a Lebanese political expert. “In my view, Iran wants a seat at the table whenever final settlement is being discussed.”

UNIFIL, meanwhile, says it hasn’t failed and takes some of the credit for 17 years of relative quiet on the border. “This accomplishment is due to the work of peacekeepers—in particular, our liaison and coordination mechanisms that have helped de-escalate a number of situations over the years, but also the commitment of the parties,” Kandice Ardiel, the mission’s deputy chief of strategic communications and public information, told Foreign Policy via WhatsApp.

UNIFIL has undoubtedly had an important mediating role in compensating for the lack of diplomatic relations between Israel and Lebanon. But both the Israelis and the Lebanese feel that the relative quiet of the past decade and a half was due not to UNIFIL’s successes, but rather Israel and Hezbollah’s aversion to a full-scale war in the face of its failures.. Now, Israel says it has been compelled to rethink that stance.