Lebanon
Expected Council Action
In August, the Security Council is expected to renew the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) ahead of its 31 August expiry. Prior to that, Council members will hold closed consultations on UNIFIL. Khaled Khiari, the Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, is the anticipated briefer.
Council members are also likely to watch developments in Lebanon, Israel, and the region closely and evaluate whether additional Council action is required.
Key Recent Developments
Following the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas on 7 October 2023, near-daily exchanges of fire across the Blue Line between Israel and Hezbollah and other armed groups in Lebanon have continued, with the intensification of strikes and bellicose rhetoric by Israeli and Hezbollah officials in recent months raising concerns about the possibility of an all-out war. (While not representing an international border, the Blue Line acts in practice as a boundary between Lebanon and Israel in the absence of an agreed-upon border between the two states. Any unauthorised crossing of the Blue Line constitutes a violation of resolution 1701, which in 2006 called for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. For background on the war in Gaza, see “The Middle East, including the Palestinian Question” brief in our July Monthly Forecast.)
The exchanges of fire have resulted in casualties among combatants and civilians on both sides of the Blue Line. A 16 July update by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that over 460 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the escalation in early October, including at least 100 civilians. According to figures cited by the Associated Press on 20 July, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed in Israel. The exchanges of fire have displaced tens of thousands of people, caused property and environmental damage, and generated unexploded ordnance contamination on both sides of the Blue Line. (For more, see the Lebanon brief in our July Monthly Forecast.)
Developments in late July have the potential to change the trajectory of the confrontation and lead to a wider regional escalation. On 26 July, twelve children were killed in a rocket strike on the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan. Israel accused Hezbollah of being responsible for the strike, while Hezbollah denied having any role in it, with some analysts suggesting that the strike could have been a misfire. On 30 July, Israel claimed responsibility for the killing of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in an airstrike on the Haret Hreik suburb of Beirut, saying that Fuad was responsible for, among other things, the strike in Majdal Shams. Besides Fuad, five civilians, including two children, were killed in the Beirut strike.
A few hours after Fuad’s assassination, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an airstrike in Iran’s capital, Tehran, where he was attending the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian. While Israel neither claimed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s killing, it had reportedly pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders following the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks in Israel. Iran and Hamas accused Israel of Haniyeh’s assassination, with Iran stating in a 31 July letter to the Security Council that the killing could not have occurred without US authorisation and intelligence (S/2024/584). US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denied that the US knew of, or was involved in, the operation in Tehran. Developments related to Haniyeh’s assassination were discussed in a 31 July Security Council emergency briefing requested by Algeria, China, and Russia following Iran’s request in its 31 July letter. The meeting was held under “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question” agenda item.
On 24 July, Council members held a briefing in consultations on the Secretary-General’s 12 July report on the implementation of resolution 1701, which covers the period from 21 February to 20 June. According to the report, UNIFIL recorded over 1,500 trajectories of projectiles fired from north of the Blue Line and more than 3,000 from south of the Blue Line, each trajectory possibly representing multiple projectiles.
The report described the use of artillery, anti-tank guided missiles, surface-to-air missiles, mortars, rockets, and drones by Hezbollah and air and drone strikes by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), with UNIFIL observing the use of white phosphorus ammunitions in artillery strikes on Lebanese territory on at least three occasions. (Human rights organisations have attributed the use of white phosphorus in southern Lebanon to Israel.)
The Secretary-General’s report says that UNIFIL conducted Blue Line vehicle patrols and counter-rocket-launching patrols “in close coordination” with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). Operational activities such as foot patrols and air operations remained suspended, however, “except for a limited number of foot patrols in areas sufficiently distant from the Blue Line”. While the freedom of movement of the mission was respected “in most cases”, the report said that UNIFIL “continued to experience restrictions”, noting that in several such incidents, the LAF “helped to resolve the situation through dialogue”. UNIFIL also facilitated movement of civilians and civilian activities, such as infrastructure repairs, in areas close to the Blue Line.
UNIFIL registered 25 instances of impacts on UN positions during the reporting period, with the mission’s headquarters in Naqurah being one of the most affected sites, and two incidents in March during which UN personnel suffered injuries during patrols. The report further noted that the LAF “did not engage in the breaches of the cessation of hostilities, despite coming under fire”, including on one occasion in which LAF soldiers “were reportedly injured as the result of white phosphorus shell explosions”.
Lebanon has been without a president for almost two years since Michel Aoun’s term ended on 31 October 2022, with opposing politico-sectarian blocks unable to agree on a candidate. The presidential vacuum is compounded by the fact that, over two years since the 15 May 2022 legislative elections, Lebanon’s government remains in caretaker status.
Almost four years since the 4 August 2020 Beirut port explosion, the inquiry into responsibility for the blast remains stalled.
Key Issues and Options
Averting a full-scale war in Lebanon and a possible regional conflagration are pivotal issues for the Security Council. A ceasefire in Gaza—however remote the possibility currently appears—might contribute to de-escalating the situation along the Blue Line and in the wider region.
UNIFIL’s mandate renewal is a key issue for the Security Council in August. Protecting the mandate’s integrity against a backdrop of escalating violence and uncertainty is an important issue for the Security Council. The Council could extend UNIFIL’s mandate for one year without changes to the mission’s mandate and configuration. The upcoming negotiations are likely to be complicated by issues on which Council members disagree sharply, including the escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, and the war in Gaza. This may result in Council members opting to pursue a straightforward renewal of the mission’s mandate.
Resolution 2695—which in August 2023 extended UNIFIL’s mandate until 31 August—was adopted with 13 votes in favour and two abstentions (Russia and China), marking the first non-unanimous renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate since 1985. Although the lack of unanimity was caused by diverging positions on how language on the mission’s freedom of movement was framed and negotiated rather than a lack of support for UNIFIL’s mandate, re-establishing Council unity on UNIFIL’s reauthorisation is likely to be an important issue for several Council members and may send a message of stability to the region.
Additional issues include the various violations of resolution 1701 identified in the Secretary-General’s report, such as the fire exchanges across the Blue Line; the maintenance by Hezbollah and other armed groups of weapons outside the control of the Lebanese state in the area between the Litani River and the Blue Line; the IDF’s continuing occupation of northern Ghajar, a village which straddles the Blue Line, and its “adjacent area” north of the Blue Line; and violations of Lebanese and Israeli airspace and sovereignty. The report also noted that, if confirmed, alleged arms transfers to non-state armed actors in Lebanon would also constitute a violation of resolution 1701.
That the root causes of the hostility between Israel and Hezbollah and of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remain unaddressed is a long-standing issue.
Council Dynamics
Sharp differences persist in Security Council members’ views of Hezbollah. Some members distinguish between Hezbollah’s political and military wings and have designated only its military wing as a terrorist organisation; other members, including the UK and the US, have listed Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organisation. On the other hand, Russia sees Hezbollah as a legitimate sociopolitical force in Lebanon. Despite these differences, Council members agree that a full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah must be avoided.
Council members are also broadly supportive of UNIFIL. Nevertheless, the negotiations of resolution 2695 proved difficult. The resolution retained language introduced for the first time in 2022 reaffirming that, pursuant to the Agreement on the Status of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (SOFA), UNIFIL does not require prior authorisation to undertake its tasks and that it is authorised to conduct its operations independently. During the negotiations, however, the phrase “while continuing to coordinate with the Government of Lebanon, as per the SOFA” was added in an attempt to address the demands by the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, echoed in the Council by China and Russia, to remove language about UNIFIL’s not needing prior authorisation to undertake its tasks.
China and Russia also asked and initially obtained the removal of a reference demanding that the parties guarantee UNIFIL’s freedom of movement, “including by allowing announced and unannounced patrols”. It seems, however, that then-Council member United Arab Emirates was particularly unhappy with these changes, apparently leading France (the penholder on Lebanon) to reinsert the language on “announced and unannounced patrols” in the draft text that had already been put in blue. In its explanation of vote Russia lamented the change, saying that the final version of the text failed to maintain the “fragile compromise” previously reached. China explained its abstention by saying that the resolution did not fully address the concerns expressed by Lebanon and some Council members.
Unsurprisingly, differences have also emerged among Council members regarding how to address the relationship between the war in Gaza and the escalation across the Blue Line. In June, members were apparently unable to agree on a press statement proposed by France calling for de-escalation along the Blue Line. It seems that Algeria and Russia argued for including a reference to the situation in Gaza. Apparently, Russia also requested adding language on coordination between UNIFIL and the LAF. For its part, the US opposed the idea of issuing a Council press statement, apparently arguing in favour of giving space to diplomatic efforts on the ground.
At the 17 July open debate on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question”, the US expressed support for “a straightforward extension” of UNFIL’s mandate. At the same meeting, Lebanon announced that in June it had submitted a request to the UN for the renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate “without any modification”.
| Security Council Resolutions | |
| 31 August 2023S/RES/2695 | This resolution extended the mandate of UNIFIL for another year until 31 August 2024. Thirteen members voted in favour of the resolution, Russia and China abstained. |
| 11 August 2006S/RES/1701 | This resolution called for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. It also expanded UNIFIL’s mandate. |
| Secretary-General’s Reports | |
| 12 July 2024S/2024/548 | This was the most recent Secretary-General’s report on the implementation of resolution 1701. |
