UNIFIL’s Final Chapter: Has Peacekeeping in Lebanon Ever Truly Worked?

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was established in 1978 under a mandate to monitor the withdrawal of the Israeli Armed Forces and maintain international peace and security in the southern region of Lebanon, which lies on the Mediterranean Sea. Its remit was greatly increased after the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006, when the Security Council Resolution 1701 endowed it with new mandates to secure the ceasefire line, establish the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in southern Lebanon and ensure the access of the humanitarian forces. Nearly 50 years later, UNIFIL’s mandate was finally renewed for the last time in August 2025, and UNIFIL began a series of gradual withdrawals starting in 2027.

However, in the years of UNIFIL’s operation, some pesky questions persist in making its strategic effectiveness difficult. Southern Lebanon remains volatile with frequent border conflicts, the strong presence of Hizbullah, and still unresolved sovereignty issues. Such realities demonstrate the frailties of traditional peacekeeping frameworks for highly polarized conflict zones. UNIFIL’s deployment has not provided a durable settlement but a stabilized stalemate grounded in superficial deterrence.

Peacekeeping scope limited by geopolitical complexities

Central to UNIFIL’s optimum effectiveness is Hezbollah’s uninterrupted military presence in southern Lebanon. As a long-term political party, Hezbollah has its own independent arsenal, which makes Resolution 1701’s call for the disarmament of all non-state militias a dead letter. UNIFIL is constrained in its ability to act against Hezbollah by both mandate limitations and the political reality of Hezbollah’s presence with de facto state connivance.

Israel continues to blame UNIFIL for its inability to contain the military expansion of Hezbollah. The Israeli Defense Forces have confirmed several instances of tunnel activity, spying activity, and arms deliveries in UNIFIL areas. Such violative incidents justify fears that peacekeeping presence would not be sufficient to prevent an educated militia incorporated into Lebanon’s political mainstream.

Regional actors and cross-border volatility

UNIFIL’s peacekeeping operation occurs within a wider environment of geopolitical instability. The involvement of Iran in the sponsorship of Hizbullah, the periodic unrest in Syria and the security needs of Israel, all exist within a volatile environment that often makes peace keeping reactive rather than preventive. In the absence of a centrally controlled government in Lebanon, weakened by internal division and economic disintegration, UNIFIL has to operate through security seams without domestic support.

These factors have kept long-term stabilization out of reach. While UNIFIL continues to have an operational buffer, it has not altered the underlying strategic calculus. Rather, it has been a device for crisis management and not conflict resolution.

Measured achievements amid enduring obstacles

Despite limitations, UNIFIL has succeeded to some measurable extent. It has succeeded in deterring wide hostilities since 2006, its presence acting as a buffer that deters miscalculated escalation. UNIFIL provides for direct communication between Lebanese Army and Israeli Defense Forces through the Tripartite Mechanism, which has proven itself to be vital during times of increased tension.

Since November 2024, UNIFIL has seized over 225 arms caches turned over to the LAF, a figure seen as modest but symbolically meaningful in demonstrating some compliance with disarmament programs. While Hezbollah continues to function, such seizures demonstrate the role of UNIFIL in reporting and breaking the spread of arms in small measures.

Humanitarian assistance and stabilization

UNIFIL has also supported civilian-military cooperation programs, for instance, road infrastructure construction, water management, and school programs in southern Lebanon. These efforts have encouraged community trust and reduced reliance on militant organizations to offer public services. With more than 10,800 peacekeepers from 47 contributing countries, the mission has also guaranteed international presence in Lebanon, serving as an overt display of commitment to local stability.

Although it has not eliminated root causes of strife, UNIFIL has managed to stop a number of incidents from becoming full-blown war: a notable achievement in a region of the globe where small things can quickly snowball.

Funding and international commitment

The UN peacekeeping budget, including UNIFIL, totaled around $5.6 billion for 2025. That budgetary number has faced growing pressure from donor governments in light of other competing global emergencies. The renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate for 2025 does indicate still high levels of confidence by members of the Security Council in the mission’s stabilizing value, even if its outcomes fall short of best peacebuilding goals.

The hope is still that Lebanese institutions will someday take on complete security responsibility. But there are doubts about whether those institutions—tainted by political gridlock, financial meltdown, and administrative frailty—are able to adequately fill the security vacuum left by UNIFIL’s withdrawal.

The upcoming UNIFIL withdrawal and future prospects

The 2025 decision to begin UNIFIL’s drawdown by December 2026 came following a months-long review of regional stability and peacekeeping success. The decision was supported by US officials as a step toward Lebanese sovereignty and fiscal sanity. International attention is the hope that can now move on to political reform, military buildup, and disarmament efforts inside Lebanon.

But Lebanese officials warn that the withdrawal is premature. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam challenged that the mission remains vital under Lebanon’s unfavorable economic and institutional conditions. The role of Hezbollah, the fragile state of the LAF, and controversial Israeli-Lebanese relations all complicate handing over security responsibilities.

Diverging regional views and internal vulnerability

Israel has consistently criticized UNIFIL for appearances of inaction and sees its withdrawal as a spur to fresh enforcement arrangements directly with the Lebanese state. Israeli authorities still, though, also worry about renewed instability along the Blue Line in the absence of UN monitors. Some experts caution that Israel’s strategic calculation might increasingly shift towards pre-emptive deterrence if unchecked Hezbollah expansion after the UNIFIL withdrawal is permitted.

Within Lebanon, Hezbollah’s reaction to the upcoming drawdown is muted but strategically significant. The organization could view the departure of UNIFIL as an affirmation of its strategy of deterrence, with its autonomy in the south further solidified by eschewing direct confrontation.

Stakeholder perspectives reveal divergent hopes and concerns

There have been several accounts of the expiry of UNIFIL’s mandate. To donors internationally, it is an opportunity to redefine peacekeeping budgets and shift to more settled local security arrangements. To Lebanon’s elite civilian leadership, it signals concern over state fragility and external and internal destabilization.

This author has answered the topic, underscoring the challenges peacekeeping is going through in complex geopolitical environments like Lebanon, where military and political facts always test the boundaries of UN mandates:

UNIFIL’s method towards its conclusion is not only an operational milestone—it is the broader challenge of international peacekeeping to deeply established conflicts. While its existence has perhaps not delivered lasting peace, it has kept the peace at bay from anarchy in one region of the globe where diplomacy all too often runs behind events. The post-UNIFIL era will test Lebanon’s mettle and push regional and international actors to respond to unpleasant questions about what tools actually build peace when violence is not enough to assure stability.