UNIFIL to leave Lebanon next year, leaving uncertainty over next steps

Another blast inside a UN position has underscored just how perilous southern Lebanon has become, with three peacekeepers injured on Friday in what a UN spokesperson called “a difficult week” for troops operating in the heart of UNIFIL’s area.

The latest incident came after two separate attacks earlier in the week killed three Indonesian soldiers and wounded three others.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin described the violence as a “shocking escalation”.

Even as the Blue Helmets insist they will hold their ground, conditions on the ground are deteriorating by the day.

Israel launched its latest offensive after Hezbollah fired rockets across the border in the wake of US and Israeli strikes on Iran.

Now, with only months left before UNIFIL’s near half-century mission draws to a close — a deployment in which Irish troops have served without interruption — many fear south Lebanon is heading toward an even darker chapter.

Michael Browne, former head of UN Security who completed three tours with UNIFIL in the 1980s and 1990s, said peacekeeping in Lebanon was “baked into the DNA of the Defence Forces”.

“Those of us who have served on deployments in south Lebanon are very proud of Ireland’s contribution to peace and stability in the area and we are ever mindful of the ultimate sacrifice made by 47 comrades-in-arms while doing so,” he told RTÉ News.

Watching the region and its communities swept into yet another war they did not choose was, he said, “heartbreaking in the extreme”.

“There could not be a worse time for the non-renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate and the cessation of vital support which the force provides to the local populations,” he said.

Last August, the UN Security Council voted to bring UNIFIL’s mandate to an end on December 31st 2026.

UN sources told RTÉ News that after that point, a foreign troop presence could remain in the country to support the Lebanese armed forces.

A girl sits beside a tent at an unofficial camp for displaced people on Beirut’s waterfront area

UN Secretary General António Guterres has been asked to present recommendations to the council by June this year on what a post-UNIFIL arrangement might look like.

“Maybe the EU as a regional institution could come in behind the Lebanese Armed Forces and provide support,” said Vice Admiral Mark Mellett, former Chief of Staff of Ireland’s Defence Forces.

“I would be very reticent to have an alternative to UNIFIL, because the legitimacy of the United Nations is gold standard,” he said.

“Anything less than that, I think, is suboptimal”.

Still, the prospect of a multinational force securing the support of a divided UN Security Council appears remote.

Consensus among the major powers on the UN’s top decision-making body is famously hard to achieve.

Eyes and ears

Irish troops pictured at Camp Shamrock in December

UN officials often refer to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon [UNIFIL] as the international community’s “eyes and ears”.

That description reflects the core of its mission: observing developments, monitoring the “cessation of activities,” and reporting back to the UN Security Council.

The force also serves as a deconfliction channel between Israel, Lebanon and Hezbollah.

The Blue Helmets were first deployed in 1978 after Israel invaded Lebanon following a cross-border raid into Israel by a Palestinian group.

The mission was initially tasked with observing Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory and helping Lebanon restore authority in the south.

As conflict repeatedly flared over the years, the Security Council — which renewed the mission annually — broadened its mandate.

In 2000, a Blue Line marked by blue barrels was drawn for roughly 120km from the Mediterranean Sea to the Golan Heights to separate the parties.

But violations by Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants continued.

In 2006, Israel launched another invasion after a Hezbollah ambush of Israeli soldiers and demands for the release of Lebanese prisoners.

UNIFIL’s role then expanded again, taking on a humanitarian dimension to assist civilians in southern Lebanon and, critically, to “ensure that its area of operations is not utilised for hostile activities of any kind”.

That language would become a flashpoint.

Israel and its main ally on the Security Council, the United States, cited continued Hezbollah activity in the area as proof that UNIFIL had “failed” in its mission. Israeli officials went further, accusing Blue Helmets of serving as “human shields” for the Iran-backed Shia militants.

UN officials strongly reject those claims.

The mother of Indonesian peacekeeper Farizal Rhomadhon, who was killed in an attack, is consoled

“There is a deep-rooted misconception in some circles that UNIFIL was tasked with, or even had the authority to, disarm Hezbollah,” said UNIFIL spokesperson Kandice Ardiel.

“This has never been the case,” she told RTÉ News from UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura, southwest Lebanon.

She said implementing the terms of the Security Council resolution under which UNIFIL operates is the responsibility of the parties themselves — Israel and Lebanon — while UNIFIL’s role is to support and assist.

Under that resolution, Lebanon is required to establish a zone “free of unauthorised weapons” between the Blue Line and the Litani River.

When UNIFIL observed and reported a number of activities and sites, including private property it sought to inspect, and requested Lebanese authorities facilitate access, “that facilitation was not forthcoming,” she said.

“UNIFIL has always been there to help, but we can only do what the Lebanese authorities ask us,” Ms Ardiel said.

Mark Mellett said he felt a “sense of foreboding” about where Lebanon is heading as UNIFIL prepares to depart, Israel presses forward and the Lebanese Armed Forces remain unable to counter Hezbollah without major international backing.

“The bedrock of any state sovereignty is its defence forces,” he told RTÉ News.

“They provide the kind of framework for the institutions that provide for the state, for where institutions function, people are free and the vulnerable are protected,” he said.

First responders search for survivors at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Zibdine

Caught in the crossfire

Distrust of UNIFIL among some local residents has deepened in recent years, a trend UN officials say has often been fuelled by Hezbollah disinformation.

The slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah once cast UNIFIL as an “armed foreign force operating on Lebanese soil” and a “spy for Israel.”

In 2025, a UN spokesperson told RTÉ News that “persistent rumours” had contributed to the killing of Irish peacekeeper Seán Rooney.

Private Rooney was killed on 14 December 2022 when the UN-marked armoured vehicle in which he was travelling came under fire near the southern town of Al-Aqbiya.

Another Irish soldier, Trooper Shane Kearney, 22, was seriously wounded in the same attack.

At the same time, countries contributing troops have accused Israeli forces of directly striking peacekeeping personnel and UNIFIL positions.

According to UN sources, the UN’s preliminary findings indicate that the first explosion inside a UNIFIL outpost was consistent with Israeli tank fire.

The second was a roadside bomb, consistent with Hezbollah activity in the area.

During a hastily convened Security Council meeting on Tuesday morning, the attacks drew broad condemnation.

Diplomats accused Hezbollah of indiscriminate rocket fire and of holding the Lebanese population hostage.

Israeli forces also faced strong criticism. The French envoy accused Israeli soldiers of “aggression” and “intimidation” against the French contingent on the ground.

After UNIFIL

The exchanges were diplomatic in tone, as such meetings often are.

But looming over the chamber was a larger and more urgent question: what comes after UNIFIL?

That same day, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz laid out plans to empty southern Lebanon of its inhabitants, pointing to Israel’s destruction of Gaza as a model.

“All homes in Lebanese villages near the border will be destroyed — in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza,” he said, “to remove, once and for all, the threats near the border.”

“At the conclusion of the operation, the IDF will establish a security zone inside Lebanon… and will maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani River,” he added.

He said Israel would block the return of 600,000 residents of southern Lebanon to areas south of the Litani River “until the safety and security of northern Israeli residents is ensured”.

Addressing the Security Council on Tuesday, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher asked how the body intended to respond to those statements.

“Given the trajectory that some Israeli ministers have described and given what we have seen in plain sight in Gaza, how will you protect civilians?” he said.

“Secondly, given the intensity of the coercive displacement that we are seeing, how should we prepare collectively as the international community for a new addition to the list of occupied territories?” he added.

On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Israeli officials had privately contacted local Christian and Druze communities in south Lebanon to tell them they could remain.

But, according to the newspaper, they said any Shiite Muslims who had taken shelter elsewhere amid Israel’s destruction of Shiite-majority villages should be prevented from returning.

The report suggests that not only the map, but also the ethnic balance of south Lebanon, is being reshaped.

And with it, the Blue Line may disappear.

Reflecting on the force’s approaching departure, spokesperson Kandice Ardiel said: “From 2006 to 2023, UNIFIL contributed to the longest period of stability in south Lebanon in recent memory, which meant a generation of children could grow almost to adulthood without knowing war”.

“That is hard to quantify, but I think it’s truly meaningful”.