Israel, which long vilified the United Nations peacekeepers assigned to Lebanon as ineffective at best, has received its wish. Thousands of blue helmets deployed in Lebanon will soon be on their way out. Whether anyone, or anything, can replace them is far less clear.
Last year, the UN Security Council (UNSC) extended the mandate of its Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) for a final time until the end of December 2026. First deployed in 1978, UNIFIL was reinforced in 2006 and tasked with monitoring violations of a deal that ended the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that year.
They are leaving at a time when the Lebanese Armed Forces are undertaking the mammoth task of disarming Hezbollah and need external support from better-trained and better-equipped armies. Whether under the UN. umbrella or outside it, Lebanon needs a functional replacement for UNIFIL—ideally one with more teeth.
The United Nations has outlined three options, with proposed troop numbers varying from nearly 2,000 to around 5,500. Their ability to support the Lebanese military declines with the numbers and capabilities allocated.
This could be seen as a reformed UNIFIL. But different actors have different propositions in mind. Israelis prefer it to be an American enterprise. France wants to maintain its sway in the region and is forming a coalition of willing countries that may deploy troops post-UNIFIL. There is also chatter about a Turkey-led NATO-backed deployment.
These ideas are not mutually exclusive. Elements of each could ultimately be combined and turned into an international stabilization force— a model that hasn’t yet taken off in Gaza but is more likely in Lebanon, which has a functioning state and an army.
“It is possible to do this in Lebanon,” a senior European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me. “Because it has a state, a government.”
A U.S military delegation landed in Beirut ahead of the talks between Israel and Lebanon held in Rome this week. A US. official said that U.S. Central Command (Centcom) was moving ahead with the “implementation stage” of the U.S.-mediated trilateral framework agreement signed between the two countries in June.
The agreement said that the United States “intends to work closely with both countries to verify and support” the process of Hezbollah’s disarmament in phases. Despite Lebanon’s claims last year that it had ousted Hezbollah from most parts of the country south of the Litani River, the militia has launched attacks against Israel from inside those areas in the fighting that ensued after the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February and Hezbollah hit back to avenge the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That weakened the Lebanese position in talks and strengthened the Israeli claim that without a trusted oversight mechanism in place, Lebanon’s claims alone could not be trusted. (An oversight mechanism would also helps the Lebanese—in monitoring Israeli violations and for the United States to see for itself and determine if Israel is crossing the red lines.)
Israel now says that it may withdraw from occupied Lebanese territory based upon US. verification of Hezbollah’s disarmament. The trilateral framework calls on the Lebanese military to clear “pilot zones” or specific areas of Hezbollah’s arsenal. Thus far, only two such zones have been identified.
Hezbollah may abandon a few areas for the Lebanese military and U.S. President Donald Trump to claim success—if only to encourage the reconstruction of Shiite-dominated southern Lebanon. But the group has rejected the framework agreement and talks with Israel. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said the group was not bound by the agreement and described it as a “surrender of sovereignty” for Lebanon.
“We will continue as a resistance in the field,” he said, “to defeat the occupation,” referring to Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron has started to assemble a new coalition of willing countries that say they will aid the Lebanese military post-UNIFIL. France has been marginalized by the United States in Lebanon and kept out of the framework agreement despite being a partner in a 2024 ceasefire deal. France feels it has a bigger responsibility since it has a history in the Levant and sees itself as a player in the region.
“President Macron indicated that he would conduct outreach to a number of countries” to decide on the next steps to replace UN peacekeepers with an international force, the Lebanese presidency said on social media.
Last week, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that Germany was working with France and discussing a European role post-UNIFIL. “Together with France, we want to define a common policy for Lebanon to increase the chances of peace in the Near and Middle East,” Wadephul told a German newspaper.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been more forthcoming and vowed to keep Italian boots on the ground. Italy sends one of the biggest contingents of peacekeepers to the mission, more than France. But unlike France, Italy has emerged as a European power that both Israel and Lebanon can work with. France’s relations with Israel declined after Macron took a harder line on Israel’s military campaigns.
Rome has assured Lebanon that it will continue its bilateral military mission in Lebanon, deployed at the request of Lebanon’s government a decade ago, and continue to lead the Military Technical Committee for Lebanon, set up last year with France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the European Union as members to coordinate military support for the Lebanese military.
The U.N. has offered a specific number of uniformed soldiers, accompanied with armed soldiers for force protection, in the options that it has presented. The first two options also list the possibility of “joint operations” with the Lebanese armed forces to assert state monopoly over weapons—a stark difference from UNIFIL which mostly monitored violations and liaised between parties.
The first option calls for deployment of more than 5000 uniformed personnel, with a possibility of conducting joint operations north of the Litani River, towards Beirut. The second option is similar, with fewer armed soldiers and “some” joint operational activities with the Lebanese Armed Forces. The third option has the lowest number of soldiers and a limited capacity to conduct verification. Its ability to support Lebanese efforts to ensure the south “is free of unauthorized assets, weapons or armed personnel,” belonging to any armed groups, is also restrained.
Sami Nader, a Lebanese political analyst said that any international force will likely be outside the UN ambit. “You have to again go to the UNSC, you need a new resolution, and it will be vetoed either by China or Russia or the US,” he said. “UNIFIL’s mandate has not been extended beyond 2026 because of pressure from the US.”
Lebanon has requested the support of international partners, under US leadership, to assert a state monopoly over weapons and disarm Hezbollah. A more likely scenario is a US-led international stabilization force that could include Europeans and Turkish troops.
So far, there is no indication that Centcom will engage Hezbollah militarily. In the early 1980s US Marines were deployed in Lebanon to oversee the peaceful evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organization following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. But U.S. barracks were eventually bombed, killing many Marines. It was a bloody lesson for Washington. Moreover, Trump has consistently opposed deploying US ground troops in the Middle East. Washington could potentially lead a future mission from another base in the region.
“American monitors will be on the ground—American national technical teams, intelligence gathering teams,,” said Eran Lerman, a former Israeli deputy national security advisor and retired intelligence colonel who now serves as the vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. “Basically Centcom is undertaking the work to verify that Hezbollah is actually disarming.”
The first steps of any such force would be to seal both the border with Syria and maritime boundaries to block the flow of weapons to Hezbollah, as well as to expand and improve Lebanon’s defense kit and provide better training to Lebanese soldiers—preferably outside the country. But the fighting, it seems, will be left to the Lebanese. None of the suggested replacement models commit to fighting Hezbollah.
The UN’s proposals indicate that the troops would provide substantially more support to the Lebanese Armed Forces than UNIFIL and engage in joint operations, but it is unclear about what sort of operations would be carried out.
Neither of the aforementioned European countries have clarified whether they are willing to coercively disarm Hezbollah alongside the Lebanese military, which has long been held back by the fear of sectarian clashes—between Hezbollah’s Shiite supporters and other communities—and even a civil war.
Some expect that a weakened Hezbollah might fold under sustained global pressure and limit itself to serving as a political party. But despite being diminished in recent years and enduring massive losses under Israeli fire, there is reason to think that Hezbollah might even now feel emboldened, especially as its patron, Iran, stands by its side and refuses to accept defeat in its own conflict with the United States. Hezbollah’s narrative of victory is being questioned at home, but it hopes that Iran’s continued resistance to the United States will also prove to be beneficial to its key proxy and allow it to keep its weapons.
The key conundrum for any UNIFIL replacement is this: If it doesn’t take on Hezbollah directly, it will be of limited use in achieving the key goal of restoring state monopoly over weapons. If it does, there will be casualties and it will get mired in a theatre far away from home, perhaps even in the middle of a civil war. Israel understands all of this and is likely to just sit back and watch. As long as Hezbollah holds its weapons, Israel has indicated that it will hold Lebanon’s territory.
