Can an 18-year-old UN resolution bring peace to Lebanon and Israel?
An 18-year-old United Nations resolution has reappeared as a model for resolving the conflict, with a truce between Israel and Hezbollah currently in effect. A plan “designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities” with Hezbollah was endorsed by Israel and Lebanon, according to US President Joe Biden. The agreement took effect on Wednesday at 4 a.m. local time. The UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 to put an end to a 34-day conflict between Israel and Lebanon and maintain relative peace in the region for over 20 years, is intended to be implemented by the 60-day cease-fire. That continued until Hezbollah launched a sympathy strike the day after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel last year, sparking a confrontation that lasted for more than a year.
A path to peace in Lebanon
The resolution called for Israel to remove all of its troops from southern Lebanon and for the Lebanese military and UN peacekeeping forces to be the only armed formations operating south of the Litani River. Although it has pushed for a system to be implemented more rigorously, the United States, which is mediating between Israel and Lebanon in the present crisis, feels that a return to the resolution’s principles is in the best interests of all sides. Israel has said that Hezbollah has repeatedly violated the resolution by conducting operations near its border. Lebanon claims that for the last 20 years, Israel has frequently violated the pact by launching fighter planes into its airspace. After being attacked by Palestinian terrorists in Lebanon, Israel invaded the nation in 1982, bringing tanks to the capital, Beirut. After that, it controlled southern Lebanon for over 20 years until Hezbollah, which was founded to oppose Israeli occupation with Iranian support, drove it out in 2000. The so-called Blue Line, a “line of withdrawal” for Israeli soldiers from Lebanon, was created by the UN in 2000. The de facto border between the two nations is now that line.
The 18-year-old resolution’s power
However, Lebanon has maintained that Israel has not fully left the nation and is still in possession of the Shebaa Farms, a 15-square-mile (39-square-kilometer) area of territory that Israel has owned since 1967. The Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria and then annexed, are said to include the Shebaa Farms region. The Golan Heights are regarded by the world community as Syrian-occupied territory, with the significant exception of the United States. After he murdered three soldiers and abducted two more in 2006, Israel launched another invasion of Lebanon in an attempt to force the release of Lebanese captives. In the little more than month-long conflict, 170 Israelis, primarily military, and over 1,000 Lebanese, primarily civilians, lost their lives. Resolution 1701, which demanded “a full cessation of hostilities” between Israel and Hezbollah, was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council on August 11, 2006. The resolution called for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Lebanese government to “deploy their forces together throughout the south” and for Israel to remove all of its forces from southern Lebanon. The area would be off-limits to any other armed troops.
UN resolution as a solution
The Lebanese government was also urged “to exercise its full sovereignty so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the Government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the Government of Lebanon.” UNIFIL is the principal agency responsible for carrying out Resolution 1701 on the ground; it is a 10,000-man UN peacekeeping force. In 2008, Israel and Hezbollah exchanged five Lebanese detainees for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers who had been seized in 2006 during a UN-mediated prisoner swap. Israel eventually released the bodies of about 200 Arabs. On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah opened fire on the Israeli-held Shebaa Farms, claiming to be in sympathy with Gaza’s Palestinians. This came a day after Hamas, based in Gaza, carried out a massive offensive on southern Israel, killing almost 1,200 people and capturing another 251 captives. Israel retaliated. On October 1, the United Nations said, “While most exchanges of fire have been confined to within a few kilometers of either side of the Blue Line, several strikes have reached as far as 130 km into Lebanon and 30 km into Israel.” UNIFIL detected 15,101 cross-border trajectories between October 8, 2023, and the end of June, of which 12,459 were from Israel into Lebanon and 2,642 from Lebanon into Israel.
Can old resolutions end conflict?
Since then, cross-border clashes have persisted but have been contained along the Israel-Lebanon border. However, in September of this year, Israel broadened its war objectives to include the repatriation of northern residents who were uprooted by Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks, which the group stated would cease attacks on Israel only after a ceasefire was achieved in Gaza. Following that, Lebanon was the target of a major airstrike and a ground invasion on October 1.
