Southern Lebanon is approaching a consequential security transition that few diplomats believe is ready. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, better known as UNIFIL, is preparing to end its operational mandate at the close of 2026, even as Israeli forces remain deployed across parts of the south, Hezbollah has not been disarmed, the Lebanese Armed Forces are under pressure to expand their presence, and hundreds of thousands of civilians remain displaced by a conflict that reignited in March. On September 19, UNIFIL commander Major General Diodato Abagnara warned that the mission’s withdrawal can only be managed safely if the functions it now performs — monitoring, liaison, humanitarian escorts, civilian support and the preservation of decades of border records — are transferred in an orderly way to Lebanese institutions or another international mechanism. His warning has sharpened a question that is moving from diplomatic background to immediate operational concern: what fills the space when a nearly five-decade-old peacekeeping mission starts to leave one of the Middle East’s most heavily militarised frontiers?
A warning from the commander as the clock runs down
Abagnara’s comments, made to Reuters from a UNIFIL position near Mansouri in southern Lebanon, were less a dramatic declaration than a statement of institutional reality. The mission is not simply a collection of armed observers who can be removed from the map overnight. It is a network of bases, patrol routes, liaison channels, humanitarian procedures, mapping records and relationships built over almost half a century. Those functions have become more difficult, not less important, since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah resumed in March 2026. UNIFIL has continued to monitor hostilities where access allows, facilitate humanitarian movement and maintain communication with Lebanese and Israeli authorities even as the geography of its own area of operations has changed around it.
The immediate problem, according to Abagnara, is that a significant share of the mission’s infrastructure now sits in territory controlled by Israeli forces. Reuters reported that more than half of UNIFIL’s nearly 50 bases lie in areas currently under Israeli control, including the mission’s headquarters at Naqoura. That makes a conventional handover to the Lebanese Armed Forces difficult. A base cannot simply be transferred to Lebanese troops if those troops cannot reach it without passing Israeli checkpoints or if the surrounding ground remains contested. Abagnara said some transfers could therefore be “very difficult,” a cautious phrase that masks a basic operational contradiction between the UN timetable and the military facts on the ground.
The commander also pointed to work already under way with other UN agencies and the Lebanese military. UNIFIL is sharing information about sensitive areas and discussing how humanitarian assistance can continue where Israeli control has complicated access from the rest of Lebanon. That transition planning is important because the Security Council’s decision does not merely reduce the number of peacekeepers. It changes who is expected to perform tasks that have been central to the civilian and security architecture of southern Lebanon for decades.
What the Security Council actually decided
The legal framework is clear. In August 2025, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2790, extending UNIFIL’s mandate for what it explicitly called a final time until December 31, 2026. The resolution instructs the force to cease its normal operations at that point and begin an orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal lasting up to one year. During that withdrawal period, UNIFIL retains authority for a narrower set of protective and enabling functions, including security for UN personnel and facilities, situational awareness around its positions, escorts, emergency extraction, medical support and assistance to civilian-led humanitarian delivery where its capabilities permit.
That distinction matters because the phrase “UNIFIL withdrawal” can sound more abrupt than the formal process. The mission will not vanish on January 1, 2027. Its operational mandate is scheduled to end, after which bases are expected to close progressively and personnel and equipment will be withdrawn. But the functions that matter most for regional stability — monitoring, liaison, verification and support to Lebanese state authority south of the Litani River — are supposed to migrate elsewhere. The Security Council also asked the UN Secretary-General to explore options for implementing Resolution 1701 after UNIFIL’s departure, including ways to support Blue Line monitoring and the Lebanese Armed Forces.
Lebanon now wants that finality reconsidered. President Joseph Aoun has described an extension as Beirut’s preferred option, and Reuters reported that two-thirds of Lebanon’s parliament signed a petition seeking to keep the mission. France has also favoured prolonging the UN presence. Yet diplomats have described an extension as unlikely, and neither the United States nor Israel has signalled support for simply continuing the existing mission. That mismatch between Lebanon’s preference and the Security Council’s present decision is driving an increasingly urgent search for alternatives.
A nearly 50-year mission at the centre of a new war
UNIFIL was created in 1978 after Israel invaded southern Lebanon in response to attacks by Palestinian militants. Its original mandate was temporary: confirm Israeli withdrawal, help restore international peace and security and assist the Lebanese government in re-establishing authority. The mission survived multiple wars, occupations and political transformations. After Israel withdrew in 2000, the UN established the Blue Line to verify that withdrawal. Following the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Security Council Resolution 1701 expanded UNIFIL’s role, giving it a larger force and a broader mission that included monitoring the cessation of hostilities, supporting Lebanese army deployment across the south and helping ensure humanitarian access.
The Blue Line is not a formally agreed international border, but in practice it has become one of the most consequential reference lines in the region. UNIFIL has helped maintain maps, measurements and records associated with it, while operating liaison mechanisms intended to reduce misunderstandings between two states that remain formally at war. That makes the mission both practical and archival. It does not possess the authority to impose a political settlement, but it has created continuity around a frontier where small tactical incidents can have strategic consequences.
That continuity has been badly strained in 2026. Fighting intensified in March after a Hezbollah rocket attack, according to Reuters, leading to months of Israeli bombardment, ground activity and displacement across southern Lebanon. A June ceasefire reduced the intensity of fighting for a period, but strikes and demolitions have continued. The pattern is not a stable post-war environment in which peacekeepers can hand over calmly. It is a contested zone in which the settlement that would normally justify an international drawdown has not yet been secured.
Israeli control has redrawn UNIFIL’s operating map
The geography of Israeli deployments is central to the current dilemma. Reuters reported that Israeli forces have established what they describe as a security zone extending into southern Lebanon. Access from the rest of the country is controlled at newly established checkpoints in some areas. In the predominantly Christian town of Rmeich and nearby communities, UNIFIL vehicles have been among the few internationally recognised convoys able to move through those lines with any regularity. More than 6,000 people remain in Rmeich, according to Reuters reporting from the area.
Israel says its forces are in the zone to remove Hezbollah infrastructure and that it does not intend a permanent presence. Lebanese authorities regard the deployments as occupation, while UN officials have repeatedly cited Resolution 1701 and Lebanese sovereignty in calling for Israeli forces to withdraw. Hezbollah, for its part, has refused to disarm fully while Israeli troops remain on Lebanese territory. Each position reinforces the others: Israel says withdrawal depends on security conditions; Hezbollah ties disarmament to Israeli departure; Lebanon says only the state should ultimately control the south; and the international community is trying to construct a sequence that can make those steps happen without another major war.
The result is a handover problem with no clean order of operations. If UNIFIL leaves before the Lebanese army can enter all of its existing positions, there will be areas in which no neutral or internationally mandated observer has comparable physical access. If Israeli troops remain, direct transfer of bases becomes politically and militarily sensitive. If Hezbollah retains armed capacity south of the Litani, Israel is unlikely to view Lebanese deployment alone as sufficient. The issue is therefore not just whether the UN can move trucks and personnel out safely. It is whether the security architecture that follows is credible enough to prevent the drawdown from becoming part of the conflict itself.
Mansouri demolitions underline the dispute over facts on the ground
Abagnara spoke near Mansouri, where Reuters journalists reported seeing Israeli excavators demolishing trees and multi-storey homes after residents had been ordered to leave. The UNIFIL commander described the demolitions as a violation of Security Council resolutions. Israel’s military has said it is destroying Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. The competing descriptions illustrate the reporting challenge in the current war: physical destruction is observable, but the military rationale for particular structures is often asserted by one side and disputed by the other, with limited independent access.
For a news organisation, that distinction is essential. It is possible to report that demolition is taking place and that UN officials consider it unlawful while separately reporting Israel’s claim that the targets form part of Hezbollah’s military network. Those statements do not prove one another. Nor does the existence of Hezbollah infrastructure, where independently confirmed, resolve broader legal questions about proportionality, necessity, displacement or territorial control. UNIFIL’s withdrawal could make independent observation harder precisely as these disputes become more important.
That is why diplomats have described the mission as the international community’s “eyes and ears” in the south. UNIFIL does not prevent every violation. Its critics, particularly in Israel, argue that the mission failed for years to stop Hezbollah’s military build-up. But failure to eliminate violations is different from having no monitoring presence at all. The policy debate is increasingly about whether an imperfect mechanism should be replaced by another mechanism before it is dismantled, rather than whether UNIFIL ever fulfilled every ambition attached to Resolution 1701.
Humanitarian access is no longer a secondary mission
The humanitarian dimension has become one of the strongest arguments against an unmanaged withdrawal. Since Israeli forces established control over parts of the south, UNIFIL has escorted convoys carrying food and other goods into communities that remained populated. Reuters reported that residents in Rmeich were already experiencing shortages of fresh produce and fuel after some convoys were cancelled. An Israeli military official told Reuters that Israel did not consider UNIFIL indispensable to humanitarian efforts and said the military was trying to make life easier for civilians. Residents and peacekeepers interviewed in the same area expressed a different concern: that the UN presence provides a recognised channel through checkpoints that may not be easily replicated.
The scale of civilian need is substantial. Reuters, citing the effects of this year’s conflict, reported more than 4,300 people killed in Lebanon and about 300,000 still displaced. Those figures come amid continued fighting and should be understood as wartime totals subject to revision as local authorities and international organisations update records. Seven UNIFIL peacekeepers have also been killed in the 2026 conflict, according to the mission. The presence of peacekeepers has therefore not insulated the force from the war; it has placed personnel inside it.
A future arrangement will have to answer practical questions that are easy to overlook in high-level diplomacy. Who will coordinate passage for humanitarian convoys? Who will notify armed actors about movements? Who will evacuate international or Lebanese aid workers if fighting resumes? Who will maintain deconfliction lists and communications across front lines? These tasks can be assigned to other agencies, but only if authority, access and security guarantees exist before the UNIFIL drawdown reaches the areas where those functions are now concentrated.
The Lebanese army is being asked to inherit more than territory
At the centre of every replacement plan is the Lebanese Armed Forces. Resolution 1701 has long envisaged the Lebanese state as the sole legitimate armed authority in the south, alongside UNIFIL during the transition. The U.S.-brokered framework discussed by Israel and Lebanon this year follows the same logic: Israeli troops would withdraw progressively as Lebanese forces deploy and Hezbollah is disarmed. The difficulty is not the principle but the sequence, scale and resources required to implement it.
Lebanon’s military has to operate in a country facing economic strain, political fragmentation and the legacy of a powerful non-state armed movement that is also a major domestic political actor. Expanding state control in the south requires manpower, mobility, intelligence, engineering capability, logistics, communications and sustained funding. It also requires political legitimacy across communities. A Lebanese military presence that is viewed locally as externally imposed or insufficiently protected would face different risks from one embedded in a broadly accepted national settlement.
UNIFIL’s departure therefore places pressure on donors as well as on Beirut. A handover is meaningful only if the receiving institution can perform the functions it is receiving. That is why international planning is increasingly focused not only on troops but on equipment, intelligence support, training and financial assistance. The likely successor model, if there is one, may be less visible than UN peacekeeping but more directly tied to building Lebanese state capacity.
Paris is testing alternatives outside the UN framework
On September 17, European and Arab military leaders met in Paris to examine precisely that problem. The meeting was initially chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Jordan’s King Abdullah, with the United States represented by a senior military official involved in Middle East security. Reuters reported that officials discussed options ranging from a new international mission backed by France and Italy to a possible European Union-led arrangement.
The concepts under discussion are not yet a substitute for UNIFIL because their mandates, force levels, legal authorities, rules of engagement and financing have not been agreed. French officials have indicated that training, equipment, intelligence sharing and mentoring for the Lebanese Armed Forces could be central. That would make such a mission structurally different from UNIFIL. Instead of patrolling the Blue Line under a Security Council mandate with thousands of uniformed peacekeepers, a successor could focus on enabling Lebanese institutions while maintaining some international monitoring or advisory presence.
A donor conference is expected later in 2026 or early 2027, according to Reuters, to address Lebanon’s military and financial needs. That timing is tight. If UNIFIL begins closing positions from January, decisions about funding and mission design made only after the drawdown starts could create a period in which responsibility moves faster than capability. Diplomats are trying to prevent that gap, but the window for doing so is narrowing.
Why Israel has long criticised UNIFIL
Any account of the mission’s future has to include the case made by its critics. Israeli officials have argued for years that UNIFIL failed to prevent Hezbollah from building military infrastructure and stockpiling weapons in southern Lebanon. Israel welcomed the Security Council’s 2025 decision to make the mandate extension final, describing a phased withdrawal as appropriate after what it considered years of inadequate enforcement. From the Israeli perspective, an international force that reports violations but cannot prevent a hostile armed group from entrenching near the border does not provide the security guarantee the mandate was meant to support.
The UN position is different. UNIFIL is not an occupying army, and its authority depends on a Security Council mandate, freedom of movement, cooperation with the Lebanese state and rules governing the use of force. It can patrol, monitor, report, liaise and act to protect personnel and civilians within defined limits, but it cannot unilaterally disarm Hezbollah across Lebanon. Resolution 1701 places responsibilities on the Lebanese government and other parties as well. The gap between those expectations has followed the mission for years.
Both points can be true at once: UNIFIL did not prevent the military build-up that Israel cites, and its removal could still eliminate useful monitoring, liaison and humanitarian functions. The policy question is therefore not resolved by declaring the mission a success or failure. It is whether the next arrangement will address the weaknesses Israel identifies without discarding capacities that have reduced uncertainty and maintained communication during repeated crises.
Hezbollah’s weapons remain the central political obstacle
No security architecture in southern Lebanon can be separated from Hezbollah’s armed status. The group has said it will not fully disarm while Israeli troops remain on Lebanese territory. Israel argues that its presence is required until the threat posed by Hezbollah is reduced. Lebanon’s government is under international pressure to establish a monopoly on arms while also managing domestic political realities and avoiding internal confrontation. That circularity has stalled the U.S.-backed plan, Reuters reported.
Disarmament is also not a single technical act. Hezbollah’s military capabilities include personnel, weapons, tunnel and storage infrastructure, command networks and political support structures. Verification would require agreed definitions of what counts as compliance, where inspections can occur, who conducts them and what happens when access is refused. The Lebanese army can deploy to territory, but deployment alone does not prove that every prohibited capability has been removed. Israel has historically relied on its own intelligence and military action when it believes threats remain.
A replacement for UNIFIL will have to decide whether it is expected merely to support Lebanese deployment or also to verify disarmament. Those are very different missions. The latter would require stronger access, technical intelligence and political backing, and it would almost certainly be more controversial inside Lebanon. The absence of a settled answer helps explain why officials discussing a post-UNIFIL model remain cautious about mandates.
The Blue Line could lose its institutional custodian
One of the least visible but most important questions concerns the Blue Line itself. UNIFIL has accumulated decades of cartographic work, meeting records, measurements and incident documentation connected to the line. Reuters cited a senior UN official describing the force as its “custodians.” That institutional memory matters because border disputes are not settled by satellite images alone. They depend on agreed coordinates, historical records, marker locations, minutes of prior discussions and a trusted process for handling claims.
If those records and functions move into another UN structure, the transition may be manageable. If they are divided among national governments or a new ad hoc coalition, the authority attached to them could become contested. A successor mission with fewer personnel might preserve the archive but lack ground access. A purely advisory mission might support Lebanese forces but not provide neutral verification acceptable to Israel. An EU or multinational presence could bring resources but may not carry the same legal or political weight as a Security Council operation.
These are not abstract bureaucratic concerns. In a frontier environment, an argument over whether troops, fences or earthworks have crossed a reference line can escalate quickly. A functioning liaison system can give commanders time to clarify intent before responding militarily. Removing that architecture without a replacement would increase the chance that ambiguous events are interpreted in the most threatening way.
Monitoring alleged violations will become harder
UNIFIL’s physical presence has also enabled forms of access that other international actors often cannot obtain. Reuters reported that the mission facilitated visits this year by UN staff investigating possible war crimes in Israeli-controlled parts of southern Lebanon. People familiar with the mission warned that such access could become extremely rare without peacekeepers. That matters for accountability as well as diplomacy because claims about attacks, demolitions, displacement and military use of civilian areas are often contested.
The risk is not that reporting will stop entirely. Satellite imagery, commercial data, local journalists, humanitarian organisations, government statements and open-source investigators can all provide evidence. But each source has limitations. Remote sensing can show that a building was destroyed; it may not establish who was inside it, why it was targeted or whether prior warning was effective. Local testimony is essential but can be difficult to collect safely and independently. Military intelligence may be detailed but is produced by parties to the conflict. A neutral presence on the ground does not solve every evidentiary problem, but it adds another layer of observation.
That is one reason Abagnara’s emphasis on transition has significance beyond force protection. The withdrawal concerns information architecture as much as troop numbers. Southern Lebanon will remain one of the most closely watched security zones in the Middle East. The question is who will be able to watch it from inside.
Civilians in Rmeich illustrate the stakes
The effects are already visible in Rmeich, a predominantly Christian border town that remained populated while many surrounding villages were emptied. Reuters reporters travelling with French UNIFIL peacekeepers described Israeli checkpoints controlling access from the rest of Lebanon and residents questioning how food, fuel and commercial supplies would reach them if UN escorts disappear. A schoolteacher in the town described the community as isolated and uncertain about its future.
The town’s situation is politically sensitive because local identity intersects with the broader Lebanese conflict. Residents do not want to be cut off from Lebanon or treated as collaborators simply because they remained in an area now controlled by Israel. That fear shows how an international mission can perform a political function even when its formal mandate is military: the presence of a neutral convoy can preserve a practical connection between isolated communities and the state to which they belong.
A successor arrangement will be judged in places like Rmeich rather than in conference rooms. If goods move, schools operate, medical cases can travel and civilians retain contact with Lebanese institutions, the transition may appear credible. If checkpoints harden and access becomes irregular, the end of UNIFIL could be experienced locally as a loss of protection and national connection, regardless of how carefully the withdrawal is described in diplomatic communiqués.
The humanitarian and military timelines are colliding
The central danger is a mismatch of calendars. The Security Council has a legal timetable. UNIFIL has a logistical timetable. Israel and Hezbollah have security conditions. Lebanon has state-building requirements. Civilians have immediate needs. Those clocks are not moving at the same speed. A withdrawal plan can be technically sound and still create instability if the political arrangements that should replace it are delayed.
This is why a simple extension remains attractive to Beirut and Paris: it would buy time. But extension has costs as well. Israel and the United States have questioned whether perpetuating the existing mission would change the underlying security environment. A renewed mandate without stronger implementation could postpone the same decision rather than solve it. Conversely, ending the mission on schedule without a credible successor could create pressure for unilateral security measures by Israel and greater reliance on Hezbollah’s own claim to defend Lebanese territory — precisely the competing authorities Resolution 1701 was designed to reduce.
The challenge is to create a transition that changes incentives rather than merely transferring uniforms. Lebanese forces must be capable of operating throughout the south. Israel must see a path to withdrawal that does not expose its northern communities to renewed attack. Hezbollah’s armed presence must be addressed through a mechanism that does not trigger internal Lebanese conflict. International monitors need enough access and legitimacy to verify what happens. None of those conditions can be created by UNIFIL alone, but its departure makes them harder to defer.
A replacement mission could look very different
The most plausible post-UNIFIL models now under discussion are unlikely to reproduce the mission exactly. A France- and Italy-backed multinational force operating outside a UN mandate could be smaller, more specialised and politically flexible, but it would need agreements with Lebanon and arrangements with Israel to operate safely. An EU-led mission could draw on European training, border-management and security-assistance experience, although it would raise questions about participation, neutrality and rules of engagement. A lighter UN presence could preserve Blue Line expertise and reporting without fielding thousands of peacekeepers.
There may also be a hybrid structure: Lebanese troops as the primary security provider, supported by international trainers and intelligence partners, with a small UN monitoring or liaison component and humanitarian agencies handling civilian support. Such a model would align with the Security Council’s stated objective of making the Lebanese government the sole provider of security in the south. But it would only work if the different components share information and if none is expected to perform tasks for which it lacks access or authority.
The details will matter more than the label. A force without freedom of movement cannot monitor effectively. Trainers without equipment cannot build capacity. Intelligence sharing without political trust may not be acted upon. Humanitarian agencies without security guarantees may not reach isolated communities. And any multinational mission without a clear legal basis could become vulnerable to disputes over sovereignty or impartiality.
Why the next three months matter
From now until the end of December, diplomacy will have to move faster than it has so far. UNIFIL must prepare personnel and bases for drawdown while still performing its current mandate. Lebanon will continue pressing for either an extension or a replacement that does not leave the south exposed. France and Italy will try to turn broad multinational concepts into executable plans. The United States will remain central because of its leverage with Israel and its role in the broader security framework. Israel will judge any proposal by whether it constrains Hezbollah. Beirut will judge it by whether it restores sovereignty rather than institutionalising foreign control.
Events on the ground could override every plan. A major Hezbollah attack, a large Israeli escalation or a collapse of the June ceasefire would change the risk calculus immediately. Conversely, progress on Israeli withdrawal and Lebanese deployment could make a managed handover more feasible. That uncertainty is why the mission’s commander is emphasising transition now rather than waiting until December.
The current debate should therefore be understood less as an argument over the future of one UN operation than as a test of whether the international system can replace a legacy peacekeeping structure before its absence is felt. UNIFIL has never solved the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. It has, however, occupied space between them — physically, diplomatically and institutionally. Removing that space without building another one would be an experiment conducted in the middle of an unfinished war.
What remains confirmed, and what remains uncertain
Several facts are established. The Security Council’s current decision ends UNIFIL’s operational mandate on December 31, 2026 and starts a drawdown that can run through 2027. The mission has about 7,500 personnel, and Reuters reports that more than half of its nearly 50 bases are now in Israeli-controlled areas. UNIFIL continues humanitarian and liaison work. Israel and Lebanon have discussed a framework linking Israeli withdrawal to Lebanese deployment and Hezbollah’s disarmament. France and other partners are examining successor arrangements. Lebanon is seeking more time.
Other points remain contested or unresolved. Israel says demolitions in southern Lebanon target Hezbollah infrastructure; UN officials have described at least some of those actions as violations of Security Council resolutions. Hezbollah says it will not fully disarm while Israeli troops remain. There is no agreed successor mission, no published final mandate for a multinational force and no guarantee that the Security Council will reverse its earlier decision. Casualty and displacement figures continue to evolve and should be treated as wartime estimates attributed to the relevant authorities.
The most important uncertainty is whether a political sequence can be created in which each actor sees enough security to take the next step. Without that sequence, UNIFIL’s withdrawal will not end an old peacekeeping chapter so much as expose how incomplete the underlying settlement remains.
The withdrawal is becoming a regional security test
For Europe, the issue extends beyond Lebanon. France and Italy have long contributed heavily to UNIFIL and now face the prospect of deciding whether they are willing to support a new mission without the protection and legitimacy of a Security Council mandate. For the United States, the transition is tied to a broader effort to reduce Hezbollah’s military role while ensuring Israel’s security. For Arab governments, the concern is that renewed war in Lebanon could intersect with wider regional tensions involving Iran and its allies. For the UN, the case will be watched as an example of whether a long-running peacekeeping mission can exit responsibly when the conflict it was designed to contain is still active.
There is also a lesson in institutional persistence. UNIFIL was established as an interim force. Nearly five decades later, the word “interim” has become a reminder of how temporary mechanisms can become permanent because the political conditions required to replace them never arrive. Ending such a mission may be strategically justified, but doing so exposes every function that accumulated around it over time — from military liaison to humanitarian passage to archival knowledge.
Abagnara’s message is therefore narrowly operational and broadly political at the same time. A smooth transition requires more than a departure plan. It requires another actor to be ready to receive each responsibility, from a remote observation post to a convoy route to a folder of Blue Line coordinates. Southern Lebanon has seen enough abrupt changes imposed by war. The question now is whether the end of UNIFIL can be one change that is planned before it happens.
