UN peacekeepers in Lebanon report surge of Israeli “aggressive behavior”

The complaints and counter-complaints underline how hard the job has become for the UN peacekeeping force in a frontier zone that has seen repeated violence since the 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The patrols operate in hills near the border, an area where the UN-drawn Blue Line is intended to separate hostilities even as armed strikes and cross-border tensions continue.

The AP report, based on an internal UNIFIL document shared with AP on condition that the country compiling the findings not be identified, describes a spike in incidents over 2025. It says the number of “aggressive behavior” incidents rose sharply, with just one reported in January and 27 recorded in December.

UNIFIL’s force patrols are marked as belonging to the United Nations, and the report says Hezbollah militants have not maintained a visible presence or fired on Israeli forces in recent months. In the document shared with AP, UNIFIL describes multiple cases in 2025 in which drones dropped grenades near patrols, including an October incident that wounded a peacekeeper. It also describes machine-gun fire near UNIFIL positions and cases in which UNIFIL vehicles were damaged.

The report also describes a separate pattern of direct fire at all targets from Israeli positions on both sides of the Blue Line during the last four months of 2025. It says such incidents spiked to 77 in December, up from two in January, according to the internal findings.

Israel has disputed the characterization of its actions toward UNIFIL. In a statement to AP, the Israeli military said it “is not conducting a deterrence campaign against UNIFIL forces” and said it is working within accepted frameworks to dismantle Hezbollah, which it says is largely based in southern Lebanon. The military “takes steps to reduce harm to UNIFIL forces and other international actors operating in the area,” it said.

In a separate statement, UNIFIL said that “the number of attacks on or near peacekeepers, as well as aggressive behavior toward peacekeepers, have increased since September 2025,” and it said most incidents were attributed to the Israeli military. UNIFIL also said that “the majority of incidents do not involve physical harm to peacekeepers, but any action that interferes with our mandated activities is a matter of concern.”

The report shared with AP says it “cannot be excluded” that Israel is using such incidents to maintain a military presence north of the border and prevent people who have fled the zone from returning. It also places the allegations in a wider context: UNIFIL’s mission is scheduled to end this year, and the U.S. President Donald Trump ’s administration has regarded the mission as a waste of money.

The pressure on UNIFIL has also included specific episodes after the start of 2025 that UNIFIL says disrupted its work. Among the incidents UNIFIL reported were an Israeli tank opening fire with small-caliber bullets on a UNIFIL post on Jan. 16, and a later account that a drone dropped a stun grenade that exploded near a peacekeeping patrol before flying toward Israeli territory.

Beyond the reported run-ins, the story also points to a broader dispute about what Israel is doing along the border. The UN and Lebanon said Israeli forces dropped herbicide on Lebanese territory on Sunday, which they said forced a more than nine-hour pause in peacekeeping activities, including patrols. U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said: “The use of herbicides raises questions about the effects on local agricultural lands, and how this might impact the return of civilians to their homes and livelihoods in the long-term.” Dujarric also said “any activity” by the Israeli military north of the Blue Line violates a U.N. resolution adopted in 2006 that expanded the UNIFIL mission.

UNIFIL was created nearly five decades ago to oversee Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon after Israel’s troops invaded in 1978. Last August, the U.N. Security Council voted to terminate its mission at the end of 2026, while Israel has long sought an end to the mandate, saying UNIFIL failed to keep Hezbollah away from the border.

Lebanon’s government has said UNIFIL still serves a necessary purpose and that any post-UNIFIL arrangement must fill the gap in monitoring and support for border security. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in December that Lebanon will need a follow-up force to fill the vacuum and help Lebanese troops along the border as their presence expands. In a recent AP interview, Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri said proposals are under discussion, including expanding the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, or UNTSO, and an option involving the European Union contributing to an international observer force. Mitri said: “We need a neutral, internationally mandated force to observe and make sure that whatever is agreed upon in negotiations is fully respected.”