Can Europe Fill the Gap in Lebanon as UN Peacekeepers Withdraw?

As the nearly 50-year UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon is expected to conclude at the end of 2026, proposals for the European Union to deploy a mission to fill part of the gap are gaining attention. Lebanon, still suffering near-daily Israeli strikes, with a fifth of its territory occupied and about 335,000 people displaced, is expected to be on the agenda at a meeting of EU defense and foreign ministers in Ireland this week.

The European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU's diplomatic arm, has put forward a proposal for a three-year military and civilian mission to advise and train the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Internal Security Forces (ISF), including border and maritime security. According to officials, this move is not intended to replace the UN peacekeepers, known as UNIFIL, but to strengthen the Lebanese state.

However, while EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in May that Europeans are ready to establish a mission to support the LAF, she also questioned whether they are prepared for an entirely new mission to replace UNIFIL's full mandate.

Mission with Limitations

UNIFIL was established on March 19, 1978, just days after Israel invaded southern Lebanon. Since then, its mandate has been expanded several times, most notably after the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah group, when UN Security Council Resolution 1701 added tasks to monitor the ceasefire and support the LAF's deployment in the south.

Yet, UNIFIL has never been given the authority to enforce any provisions. It can observe, report, and escort, but it cannot compel Israel to withdraw or disarm any armed group. Israel itself has been the main driver behind ending UNIFIL's role, after accusing the force of failing to prevent Hezbollah's military buildup along the Israel-Lebanon border.

A new European force is unlikely to be tasked with confirming Israel's withdrawal or disarming Hezbollah, according to Raymond Murphy, a professor at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway, who served in UNIFIL as a UN peacekeeper. The new force's role might be limited to monitoring, but with "sufficient capability to use force for self-defense and to carry out its mandate, such as freedom of movement and preventing weapons smuggling in the area."

Europe is not the only option being discussed. The UN is also working on a succession plan: one proposal would hand over remaining duties to the UN Truce Supervision Organization, and in June, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented three options to the Security Council with troop numbers ranging from 900 to 3,000, compared with UNIFIL's roughly 7,000 troops as of that month.

Israel May Benefit from Power Vacuum

The risk of a temporary vacuum is "quite serious," according to Lebanese political scientist Imad Salamey, partly because Israel could benefit from the situation. Without an international force, Israel could pursue a deal in which the LAF is "forced to coordinate" more directly with Israeli forces, with the US acting as "mediator or guarantor," shifting the architecture from international monitoring to bilateral coordination between the Lebanese army and the army occupying Lebanese territory.

"Once UNIFIL disappears, alternative arrangements created in its absence could become permanent and make establishing a successor force significantly harder," Salamey said.

The US has brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon for months, but critics say these talks have not pressured Israel to abandon its attacks and occupation of Lebanese territory. If a European force is deployed, Murphy does not expect it to change Israel's stance or prompt a withdrawal, which would make life "very difficult" for any European force deployed there.

The Problem May Be the Framework, Not the Force

Israel and Lebanon agreed in late June on a framework for establishing "pilot zones" - areas where Israel withdraws and the LAF deploys to take over security responsibilities, including preventing Hezbollah's return. Talks in Rome in early August ended without an agreement to expand the pilot zone model.

This is the political process on which any European mission would depend, and who the peacekeepers are matters less than the terms of their presence. Any force deployed without a comprehensive political agreement and a mandate accepted by both sides "would risk facing the same limitations that UNIFIL has encountered," Salamey said.

If Israel continues its operations and keeps forces inside Lebanon while Hezbollah rejects the framework, European personnel could "quickly see their neutrality questioned by one of the parties." Without reciprocal commitments, agreed rules, and actual enforcement mechanisms, replacing UNIFIL with a European mission "might simply reproduce UNIFIL's difficulties under a different name," he added.