WASHINGTON – The United States has rejected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s public appeal to extend a 48-year-old U.N. peacekeeping mission in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon, saying instead that the recent U.S.-brokered security arrangement between Israel and Lebanon will replace it.
The stance would make the June 26 Israel-Lebanon deal the successor to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), a multinational peacekeeping force that has operated in Lebanon for nearly half a century. Instead, responsibility for security would shift to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
“The United States does not support an extension of UNIFIL’s mandate beyond its final term ending Dec. 31, 2026,” a State Department official told MBN, referring to the roughly 7,400-member U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
“We consider UNIFIL to have failed,” the official said.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Aug. 28, 2025, to extend UNIFIL for a final time through Dec. 31, 2026. The resolution calls for the mission, which began in 1978, to cease operations on that date and then begin an orderly withdrawal from Lebanon that could continue through 2027.
Washington’s stance carries weight: It has been UNIFIL’s single largest financial contributor, contributing about a quarter of its budget, and as a Security Council permanent member can block any extension of the peacekeeping mission.
UNIFIL was created after Israel invaded southern Lebanon in March 1978 and was expanded substantially after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, with an official mandate that includes monitoring the cessation of hostilities and helping the Lebanese army establish state control south of the Litani River, an area Hezbollah has traditionally operated from.
Aoun earlier this week pressed for the international force to remain.
“Our first option is to extend UNIFIL’s mandate,” Aoun said Monday, according to Lebanese media. “If it is not renewed, our second option is to adopt a framework that ensures the continued presence of international forces in the south.”
Aoun said Israel had been pressing “for nearly a year” to end UNIFIL’s presence, even though Beirut regards the international force as necessary for stability.
The dispute comes amid a radically changed security landscape in Lebanon.
Israel again invaded in March this year after Hezbollah, which is designated by the United States as a terrorist organization, joined Iran’s conflict with Israel and the United States, and Israeli troops continue to hold Lebanese territory despite a subsequent ceasefire and months of talks with Beirut.
More than a million people have been internally displaced in Lebanon since the conflict resumed March 2, according to UNIFIL. Israeli strikes and military operations have also continued during the negotiations, while Hezbollah has resisted demands that it disarm before Israel fully withdraws.
Washington says the security deal it brokered between Israel and Lebanon on June 26 offers a different way to manage that conflict once UNIFIL is gone.
Lebanese and Israeli officials have this year held seven rounds of U.S.-brokered talks aimed at ending Israel’s occupation and restoring Lebanese state control over the south, with another meeting scheduled in Rome early next month. Under the June 26 deal, Israel pledged to withdraw from designated “pilot zones” to let the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) deploy in its place, disarm Hezbollah and establish state control.
So far, Israel has withdrawn from only one such zone. The two sides have also yet to agree on which countries will serve on a third-party committee tasked with verifying that Hezbollah has been disarmed in areas handed over to the LAF.
Despite the unresolved details, Washington sees that mechanism as the new security system that should follow the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers.
“We are now in a different place with the Trilateral Framework, which creates a conditions-based path to lasting security and peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon,” the State Department official told MBN. “As UNIFIL is phased out, we expect the framework to be implemented.”
The official said Washington believes UNIFIL failed to prevent “seven rounds of conflict” with Israel as well Hezbollah’s large-scale military buildup in the south of Lebanon. Hezbollah also built military infrastructure in the immediate vicinity of U.N. positions and used its proximity to peacekeepers as a shield, they said.
Still, Washington is not ruling out all international involvement after UNIFIL.
“Any new international presence must be tightly linked to the concrete goals of the framework as opposed to the indefinite mediation of an unresolved status quo,” the official said. “We are not interested in replacing one ineffective open-ended mission with another.”
Lebanon, however, argues that some of UNIFIL’s functions will still be needed during that transition. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said this week that Beirut wants a neutral international force to retain three roles in the south: “monitoring and reporting, coordination and communication.”
That leaves the sides with different visions of how much international involvement is still needed. In any case, Washington is betting that the agreement it brokered can disarm Hezbollah and lead to an Israeli withdrawal without any outside force.
“Successful implementation will also create the foundation for stable, peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon,” the State Department official said. “This is meant to make open-ended peacekeeping arrangements unnecessary.”
