Fresh Air

Since the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) began its ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on October 1, it has started to uncover the scale on which the terrorist organisation was operating directly under the eyes of the United Nations (UN).

Just 100 metres from a UN outpost at the Lebanon-Israel border, two metal trap doors, leading to a tunnel system that Hezbollah created and used for years, is easily visible. In the same one square kilometre area, about 100 Hezbollah observation posts have been uncovered, which Hezbollah used for multiple purposes:

• To film and spy on Israeli villages across the border
• To collect intelligence
• To fire anti-tank missiles at those same Israeli villages
• To allow movement between hideouts and strategic points across southern Lebanon
• To facilitate infiltration into Israel

As the extent of Hezbollah’s bases in southern Lebanon is being revealed, questions are being asked about what efforts – if any – the UN made to prevent Hezbollah’s deployment south of the Litani River, which has been its peacekeepers’ explicit mandate since 2006.

The answer, it seems, is very, very little.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, is the UN peacekeeping body that has been stationed on the Lebanon-Israel border for almost 50 years. It is the largest and most expensive peacekeeping force in UN history, with more than 10,000 soldiers, costing in excess of US$500 million per year.

As discussed in detail below, since 2006, UNIFIL’s mandate has been to help ensure Hezbollah has no military presence south of the Litani River. However, there is plenty of evidence that UNIFIL has turned a blind eye to Hezbollah’s presence and activities, and sometimes apparently cooperated with it, and that Hezbollah has often harassed and assaulted UNIFIL personnel with impunity.

This evidence includes:

• In 2000, Hezbollah terrorists, disguised as UNIFIL workers, kidnapped three IDF soldiers from Israel and held them captive. The kidnapping was captured on UNIFIL security cameras. UNIFIL not only refused to hand over the video to help Israel in the rescue of the soldiers, but lied about it ever existing. By the time the UN admitted the truth, all three soldiers were dead.
• In 2018, Hezbollah attacked a group of UNIFIL peacekeepers near Majdel Zoun, seized their weapons and set fire to their vehicles.
• In 2018, an Irish UNIFIL officer told French media that some UNIFIL soldiers were actively supplying Hezbollah with intelligence on Israeli troop positions.
• In 2021, UNIFIL admitted to multiple “disruptions” to its peacekeepers’ ability to fulfil their duties due to threats, obstructions, and damage to property by Hezbollah.
• In 2022, UNIFIL also admitted that its peacekeepers were obstructed from accessing positions along the Blue Line border, due to threats.
• In the same year, Hezbollah forces killed an Irish UNIFIL soldier.
• Hezbollah fighters captured by Israel in the current fighting have admitted to bribing UNIFIL peacekeepers to use their outposts, including their surveillance cameras, against Israel.

This pattern of behaviour inevitably inspires the question, if these peacekeepers refuse to keep the peace, why are they there?

Even before October 7 of last year, UNIFIL’s unwillingness or inability to fulfil its mandate has allowed Hezbollah to:

• Attack IDF soldiers across the border in Israel, shoot rockets, and plant explosives on the fence
• Deploy rockets and missiles, out of its estimated stockpile of more than 130,000 missiles, within the civilian population in villages and open spaces in south Lebanon
• Dig tunnels, often in close proximity to UNIFIL bases, some of which stretched from inside Lebanon into Israel territory
• Station its elite commando force, the Radwan unit, disguised as regular citizens, all along the border, in extensively prepared bases. The unit is tasked with infiltrating Israel (via its tunnels, and in other ways), killing, terrorising and kidnapping Israelis
• Position dozens of surveillance outposts and caravans along the Blue Line under the cover of a fictitious environmental group “Green Without Borders”
• Send operatives to create ‘friction’ with Israeli soldiers along the border. In 2022 alone, the number of such Hezbollah-initiated incidents jumped by 400%
• Conduct unobstructed military activities, such as setting up shooting ranges in southern Lebanon

As US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield reported, UNIFIL has clearly been “unable to access a range of troubling sites across the Blue Line,” including rocket launch sites and tunnels that Hezbollah uses as part of its operations.

Since Israel launched its operations in Lebanon on October 1, it has repeatedly called on UNIFIL personnel to withdraw from southern Lebanon to ensure their safety, adding that Hezbollah terrorists were using the force as “human shields”. The UN has refused to do so, saying, “There was a unanimous decision to stay because it’s important for the UN flag to still fly high in this region.” In fact, the Israeli Government actually requested UNIFIL to withdraw from the area on September 30 – two days before the IDF launched its operation across the border.

Israel has also claimed that Hezbollah is using UNIFIL outposts as hiding places and to launch ambushes from, which further endangers UNIFIL personnel when Israel responds.

One year of rocket attacks

Israel launched its ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on October 1 this year, following almost a year of sustained, near-daily rocket attacks launched from southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah started its campaign against northern Israel on October 8 last year, just one day after fellow Iranian proxy terror group Hamas invaded Israel and raped, tortured, and slaughtered more than 1,200 people, and kidnapped more than 240, including babies. Since October 8, Hezbollah terrorists have fired more than 12,500 rockets, anti-tank missiles and explosive UAVs at northern Israel, destroying countless homes and forcing more than 60,000 Israelis to be displaced for more than 12 months. These rockets have killed dozens of people, including 12 children who were playing soccer, and burnt 21,500 acres of land, including forest reserves.

What’s more, since Israel’s ground incursion into southern Lebanon, UNIFIL has been highly vocal in condemning Israeli actions against Hezbollah that damaged UNIFIL facilities, or put UNIFIL personnel at risk. This is in stark contrast to its relative silence in the face of Hezbollah provocations for many years.

For instance, in 2023, a Lebanese military tribunal formally accused five members of Hezbollah of killing Irish UNIFIL peacekeeper Private Sean Rooney in 2022. However, UNIFIL seems uninterested in helping bring Rooney’s killers to justice. Rooney’s family has criticised the UN for failing to respond to a coroner’s request for assistance. A lawyer for the family said it was “deeply concerned and frustrated” by the UN’s recalcitrance, including restricting information it has disclosed to the inquest.

What is UNIFIL?

In the 1970s, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) established itself in southern Lebanon, using it as a base to launch terrorist attacks against Israel and Jewish targets around the world. On March 11, 1978, 11 PLO terrorists invaded Israel and hijacked a bus near Tel Aviv in what is known as the Coastal Road Massacre; 35 civilians, including 13 children, were killed and another 71 people were injured.

Israel entered southern Lebanon three days later in a military operation known as ‘Operation Litani’ against the PLO.

Following a week-long conflict, the UN Security Council established UNIFIL. Its role, as defined in UN Security Council Resolution 425, stated that  “…in the light of the request of the Government of Lebanon, to establish immediately under its authority a United Nations interim force for Southern Lebanon for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area, the force to be composed of personnel drawn from Member States.”

The 1978 Operation Litani was carried out in the context of the Lebanese Civil War, which had begun in 1975.

In 1982, Israel once again entered Lebanon, this time in Operation Peace for the Galilee (often called the First Lebanon War), with the aim of expelling the PLO from Lebanon.

The PLO leadership did leave Lebanon, and in April 1985, the IDF withdrew to a Security Zone along the border of southern Lebanon.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Iran helped form the Shi’ite militia that eventually became Hezbollah. Hezbollah established itself in areas heavily populated by Shi’ites – southern Beirut, southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley.

Just as UNIFIL failed in its mandate in regards to the PLO, it also failed in regards to Hezbollah.

Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, which was confirmed by the UN.

In 2006, Hezbollah forces entered Israel, killed eight soldiers and captured two more (both of whom, it was later discovered, died from their wounds shortly after their capture).

This sparked the Second Lebanon War. In the wake of the war, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1701, which updated UNIFIL’s mandate. This is the resolution which sets out UNIFIL’s current mandate. Its key provision calls for:

“security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area.”

Under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, UNIFIL’s mandate was expanded from monitor to enforcer. It was meant to support the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to keep southern Lebanon free of “any armed personnel, assets, and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL.”

Its duties included ensuring that southern Lebanon is “not utilized for hostile activities of any kind.” But through historic inaction, Hezbollah’s threats, intimidation tactics, and endangerment – plus the Lebanese Government’s and the LAF’s own collusion with Hezbollah – the opposite happened.

UNIFIL has reported some of Hezbollah’s violations of Resolution 1701 – while ignoring many others – and these are then discussed by the UN Security Council (UNSC). However, the UNSC has only ever “noted” these consistent violations, despite it having the power to authorise military intervention or sanctions. In addition, the problem with UNIFIL’s reporting of Hezbollah’s violations is that such reports are only “partial and watered down,” and fail to fully capture the extent of the terrorist organisation’s violations.

For instance, UNIFIL has never reported the extensive Hezbollah tunnels and posts in the immediate vicinity of one of its bases noted at the beginning of this article, even though its troops must have been aware of them.

UNIFIL has failed spectacularly since its inception. There is now talk of a new negotiated arrangement to end the conflict in Lebanon, in which UNIFIL and the LAF would finally fulfill Resolution 1701 and keep Hezbollah military assets out of southern Lebanon. Israeli negotiators are reportedly insisting on the right to monitor and take action against Hezbollah in the area if UNIFIL and the LAF fail to do so. Given the record of the past 46 years, can anyone blame them?