As north nears a deal, UNIFIL’s failures cry out for overhaul

As US envoy Amos Hochstein works to broker a deal for northern Israel's security, UNIFIL's role in Lebanon faces scrutiny after decades of failing to curb Hezbollah's activities.

By HERB KEINON NOVEMBER 20, 2024 20:43

A UNIFIL peacekeeper preparing for a patrol along the Blue Line in Labounieh, south Lebanon, April 8 20 (photo credit: Pasqual GORRIZ/UN)

The 10,150-strong UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been about as effective in stabilizing southern Lebanon -- the goal of its original 1978 mandate -- as the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) has been in resolving the Palestinian refugee issue.

In other words, useless.

But while October 7 served as the catalyst for Israel to finally cut ties with UNRWA, there is no talk in the emerging arrangement that US envoy Amos Hochstein is putting together to end the fighting in the north and Lebanon to do away with UNIFIL.

This likely reflects a belief that the force still has some kind of constructive role to play in the region, though what that role might be remains unclear.

Not only has UNIFIL failed in its role of monitoring Hezbollah activity in southern Lebanon, but during the current fighting, it has—on more than one occasion—served to shield Hezbollah. According to IDF forces, UNIFIL has, at times, even interfered in their attempts to clear the border area of Hezbollah fighters.

In addition, UNIFIL seems comically unable to blame Hezbollah for anything. On Tuesday, in a communiqué announcing that UNIFIL peacekeepers and facilities were targeted in three different incidents, it stated that one attack was caused by a rocket “fired most likely by non-state actors in Lebanon,” while another incident involved  “an armed person” who directly fired at the patrol.

An inability to name Hezbollah highlights the problem: a fear of the terrorist organization that paralyzes the peacekeepers. If UNIFIL cannot even identify Hezbollah as the organization that shot at its own troops,  then how can it be trusted to prevent Hezbollah from rearming or re-establishing its presence in southern Lebanon. This was, after all, a key mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War. 

If UNIFIL is to have any role under the agreement that is now being hammered out with Lebanon, then it will need to be overhauled—its mandate redefined and its makeup reconstituted. How this is to be done and what shape this will take is reportedly one of the issues that still has to be worked out in the Hochstein plan.

One of Israel’s problems with UNIFIL is its composition.

Nearly 22% of the entire force is made up of peacekeepers from Islamic states that do not have any diplomatic ties with Israel: Indonesia (1,230), Malaysia (832), and Bangladesh (120). Turkey, as hostile to Israel as any of these states, contributes another 97 troops.

In addition, countries that take an openly hostile diplomatic position toward Israel make up another 15% of the delegation: China (419 troops), Ireland (349), and Spain (675). Are these nations truly reliable partners for Israel in maintaining future security arrangements along the border that will enable evacuated residents from the northern communities to return home?

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In 2006, when Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Malaysia were included in the force, part of the rationale for adding them—and Turkey—was to ensure participation by Islamic countries so the mission would not appear to be a crusade of the West against the Islamic world.

While this logic may have made sense at the time, the question now is whether these nations—along with others openly hostile to Israel—can be trusted to fulfill their assigned duties.

UNIFIL was created in 1978 after Israel’s Litani Operation to clear PLO terrorists out of southern Lebanon following the Coastal Road Massacre. At the time, it was tasked with verifying the IDF’s withdrawal and helping Lebanon, which was in the midst of a civil war, assert control over the region. Its mandate expanded significantly in 2006 under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and among the roles it was tasked with was to keep southern Lebanon free of arms and militias other than the Lebanese army.

It failed miserably.

No one realistically expected UNIFIL to confront Hezbollah on the battlefield. However, at a minimum, Israel counted on it to document Hezbollah’s growing fortifications and weapons smuggling from Iran—but even that it could not do.

Consider the 2017 report by then-UNIFIL commander Maj.-Gen. Michael Beary of Ireland. Beary, seemingly oblivious to the reality that Hezbollah had been building up fortifications and transferring massive amounts of weapons to southern Lebanon for years, declared, “I have no evidence, nor have I been provided with any evidence of weapons transfers into my area of operations. We are extremely active in the area, and if there was a large cache of weapons, we would know about it.”

His comments came even as Hezbollah was openly boasting about its arsenal. Even when Israel exposed Hezbollah’s extensive attack tunnels and weapons caches in the area, UN Secretary-General António Guterres backed Beary, insisting the UN had no evidence of arms stockpiles.

Fast-forward to the present: in October, Guterres opposed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s calls to evacuate UNIFIL from combat zones in southern Lebanon, effectively leaving the peacekeepers in the crossfire. Netanyahu said that UNIFIL was serving as a human shield for Hezbollah. According to the IDF, Hezbollah has fired dozens of rockets at Israel from positions near UNIFIL posts.

Instead of ensuring stability, UNIFIL has become a tool for Hezbollah. By embedding its operations near UNIFIL positions, Hezbollah exploits the peacekeepers as human shields.

Since the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, UNIFIL has proven completely ineffective.  Consider Hezbollah’s arms build-up and fortifications directly along Israel’s border, including a labyrinth of underground tunnels rivaling those in Gaza—all under the noses of UNIFIL troops.

And since Israel launched its recent operations in Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure, UNIFIL has further complicated IDF efforts while serving as a shield for the organization.

As an agreement is being finalized to change the security reality in southern Lebanon,  one thing is clear: UNIFIL—if it is to play any role at all — needs to be completely overhauled.