After 47 Years of Failure, It’s Time to End UNIFIL

The United Nations certainly has a funny definition of the word “interim.”

Forty-seven years after its creation, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is still around, despite clearly failing to fulfill its mission to restore peace to Lebanon’s border with Israel. The United States should veto the Force’s mandate renewal this month, and end the UNIFIL disaster.

UNIFIL has proven, over the course of decades, its failure to achieve any semblance of its stated purpose. UNIFIL was created in 1978, during the chaotic Lebanese Civil War, to try to stabilize Lebanon and prevent broader spillover.

However, even in peacetime, the force has suffered from the worst of the shortcomings associated with other UN peacekeeping forces around the world: inefficiency and unaccountability; serial inaction; and susceptibility to corruption. Though UNIFIL’s political superiors deny it, a former UNIFIL commander admitted these realities.

Even though UNIFIL saw its mandate strengthened by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 in the wake of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, its track record only got worse after the fact. Despite being granted permission by the UN to take “all necessary action” to disarm Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL did nothing of the sort.

When Israeli forces entered southern Lebanon in late 2024, they found Hezbollah weapons in roughly 1 in every 3 houses, and according to a former Israeli official, Israeli troops uncovered more anti-tank missiles in an average Lebanese village than in all of Gaza.

Despite claiming to regularly patrol and act across southern Lebanon, UNIFIL passively allowed Hezbollah to evolve from a major threat to Israel, to a borderline existential one. With Iranian help, the terror group grew its arsenal from roughly 15,000 rockets and missiles in 2006, to approximately 150,000 in 2023.

Hezbollah increased its rocket arsenal tenfold, put many of these capabilities intentionally underneath civilian buildings, and built dozens of military bases along the Lebanon-Israel border — much of it in full view of UNIFIL facilities. UNIFIL, by its own account, was routinely stymied in its patrols by Hezbollah.

UNIFIL cannot plead ignorance to its failure to counteract Hezbollah activity. According to Israeli officials, UNIFIL perpetually ignored Israel’s specific requests — based on detailed intelligence on Hezbollah activity — to act.

This inaction explicitly contravened UNIFIL’s mandate to maintain security and disarm non-state actors in southern Lebanon.

Then, following Hezbollah joining Hamas in waging war on Israel in October 2023, UNIFIL’s serial refusal to carry out its mission played right into Hezbollah’s hands.

Using its classic human shield strategy, Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles at Israel from within several hundred feet of UNIFIL facilities. By doing so, Hezbollah was able to directly complicate Israel’s operations — given Israeli reluctance to risk hitting UN facilities — and coax the all-too-willing UN into rebuking Israel when it did operate against Hezbollah near UN posts.

Furthermore, even the charitable view that UNIFIL’s inaction was due to risk-aversion is increasingly in doubt.

Last November, Hezbollah admitted that they bribed UNIFIL peacekeepers to gain access to UN facilities and equipment. This should perhaps come as little surprise given the force’s composition — by even the narrowest definitions, as JINSA has noted, roughly one-third of its current contingent are peacekeepers from countries that routinely criticize or actively boycott Israel.

Why would anyone expect a peacekeeper from, say, Malaysia, to risk their life against Hezbollah?

UNIFIL’s perennial inaction causes another subtle, but significant, problem by preventing Lebanon from assuming full responsibility for its own security. With its current political leadership openly expressing a willingness — and its military increasingly demonstrating an ability — to crack down on Hezbollah, Lebanon should finally carry the counterterrorism baton in its own country. UNIFIL should simply get out of the way, and end the pretense that it’s helping.

In UNIFIL’s stead, the United States should work with partners and allies to strengthen the entity that can, and should, take primary responsibility for Lebanon’s security: Lebanon. While working to rid the Lebanese military of any remnants of Hezbollah influence and infiltration, US and partner countries should work to build up the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

The LAF, newly emboldened from Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah and Lebanon’s new and improved political leadership, is making strides towards uprooting Hezbollah’s terror activity nationwide. This progress, while still requiring close US oversight, carrots — and, if necessary, sticks — is encouraging.

Like so many international agencies, UNIFIL is a weak entity with strong self-preservation instincts. That is why the United States should step in and do the job itself when UNIFIL comes up for its annual mandate renewal vote at the United Nations Security Council this month.