EU considers military mission to replace UN peacekeepers in South Lebanon

With the nearly 50-year United Nations peacekeeping mandate in southern Lebanon set to expire at the end of 2026, proposals for a European Union mission to fill some part of the vacuum have attracted attention.

Lebanon, still under almost daily Israeli bombardment with a fifth of its territory occupied and about 335,000 people still displaced, is expected to be on the agenda during an EU defence and foreign ministers meeting in Ireland this week.

The European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s diplomatic service, has circulated 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), Lebanon’s police, including in border and maritime security, an attempt, officials said, not to replace the UN peacekeeping force – known as UNIFIL – but to strengthen the Lebanese state.

But while the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, told reporters in May that Europeans were willing to put together a mission to help the LAF, she questioned whether there was an appetite for an entirely new European mission to come in to fully replace UNIFIL’s mission.

Read more: Al Jazeera