Lebanon will need some sort of international force after the withdrawal of the United Nations’s UNIFIL mission scheduled for 2027, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said.
– Some 10,800 UN peacekeepers have manned a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon since March 1978, but they will have one year to leave Lebanon starting 31 December, under a resolution passed last August under pressure from the United States and Israel.
– “We will always need an international presence in the south, and preferably a UN presence, given the impartiality and neutrality that only the UN can provide”
– The force would need a mix of observers and peacekeepers, largely because of a “history of hostility” with Israel, he added.
– UN peacekeepers current operate in southern Lebanon in cooperation with the Lebanese army, part of a ceasefire between Israel and the pro-Iranian Shia movement Hezbollah in place since November 2024.
– While Israel was supposed to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, it has maintained them in five areas it considers strategic.
– It regularly conducts airstrikes in the country on what it claims are Hezbollah sites and members, whom it accuses of rearming.
– Questioned about Hezbollah’s promised disarmament, Salam said Phase 2 of this process had begun “two weeks ago.”
– The Lebanese army says it has completed the first phase, which calls for disarming Hezbollah south of the Litani River.
– The second phase will involve disarmament between the Litani and the Awali River, an area further north that has significant Hezbollah influence.
– “I can clearly see that Phase 2 has different requirements than Phase 1,” said Salam, adding that Hezbollah’s rhetoric had been “rather harsh.”
– “But let me be clear, we will not back down,” he added.