Volume 6 - Issue 18 (2026-09-20)

UNIFIL and the Political and Military Developments in Southern Lebanon (1990-2005)

1- Researcher : Mohamed Ayoub Mohamed Hamou

2-Prof.Dr: Shatha Faisal Rasho

Al-Hamdaniya University – College of Education for Humanities – Department of History

This research focuses on the significance of UNIFIL’s presence in southern Lebanon from 1990 to 2005, a period that is characterized by extensive changes in politics and militarily in relation to the Israeli-Lebanese conflict, especially after the signing of Taif Agreement and the end of the Lebanese Civil War. This period witnessed a marked intensification of armed confrontations between the Lebanese resistance movement, principally presented by Hezbollah, and the Israeli occupation forces together with their local ally, the South Lebanon Army. The period was further shaped by two major Israeli Military offensives which was operation Accountability in 1993 and Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996 which participated a serious deterioration in the security and humanitarian conditions of southern Lebanon and revealed the limited capacity of UNIFIL to restrain the escalation of hostilities.

The aim of the research is to explore the history of the role played by UNIFIL and to evaluate the degree of success attained by the mission in performing its mandate of maintaining stability in the region, verifying the Israeli withdrawal, and ensuring international peace and security. As a result, the research demonstrates that UNIFIL acted as an important intermediary institution in preventing military escalation and containing the tensions in the southern part of Lebanon via surveillance of events on the ground, reporting on military violations and border infringements, and providing regular reports to the United Nations. Also, UNIFIL made important contributions to the provision of humanitarian and social assistance to the local civilian community impacted by the conflict. However, the inherent constraints of its mandate, as well as ongoing Israeli military activities and their violations, have impeded UNIFIL's ability to fulfill its mandate effectively, since the operational function of UNIFIL was limited only to surveillance, monitoring, and reporting.

Further, this study clearly shows that the Israeli pullout from Southern Lebanon in 2000 and its South Lebanon Army’s disintegration was another crucial point in the history of UNIFIL’s operations. Since then, its function changed from one of surveillance of Israeli troops’ operations in the occupied territory to observation of the Blue Line and reporting of any violations of the border zone. The United Nations consequently cut down its forces until 2002, bringing the total number of UNIFIL to approximately two thousand troops. Nonetheless, this mission continued to be highly important in the list of United Nations’ missions in the Middle East region.