Introduction

Lebanon, one of the most troubled countries in the Middle East, is once again at a critical crossroads. Israel’s 2024 offensive against Hezbollah has significantly weakened the Lebanon-based militant group, but it’s far from clear if a recently struck cease-fire will hold, and if it can succeed where past efforts have failed: in securing Lebanon’s sovereignty over its border regions.   

The yearlong Israel-Hezbollah conflict has battered Lebanon, a country that many economists and security experts have warned in recent years is becoming a failed state. As Lebanon grapples with a full spectrum of daunting crises, several institutions and groups are playing or could play influential roles, including the Lebanese government, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and several foreign powers.

Lebanon at a Glance

Despite or—as some analysts have suggested—because of its fragility, Lebanon is seen as one of the most politically and socially liberal states in the Middle East. Freedom House, the human rights watchdog, rates the country as “partly free” in a predominantly “not free” region. 

Beirut, by far the country’s largest city, has historically been a regional trade and financial center and was once considered the “capital of Arab modernity” for its rich cultural and political milieu. “For decades, Lebanon had lured not just revolutionaries but also poets, ideologues, artists and all types of opposition figures and plotters. A weak state was both a blessing and a curse,” writes Lebanese journalist Kim Ghattas about the country during the 1970s and 80s.

Lebanon’s unique “confessional” democracy has ensured its government has a measure of pluralism, but regional experts say its power-sharing system has choked under the influence of corrupt sectarian elites, powerful militias—chiefly Hezbollah—and intervening foreign powers. “Positions continue to be doled out based on religious affiliation, as are state resources, which are in turn cycled through networks of other officials, bureaucrats, and supportive business interests at the expense of the greater good,” wrote CFR Senior Fellow Steven A. Cook of Lebanon in 2020. 

The small Mediterranean country is no stranger to volatility and hardship, having endured a long and bloody civil war (1975–1990), extended periods of foreign occupation, and the humanitarian burden that comes with more than 1.5 million refugees. But analysts say that Lebanon has experienced a period of historic adversity over the last five years as a series of crises have compounded the suffering, including a sovereign default, the Beirut port explosion of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

In one of the most telling metrics, Lebanon’s economy has contracted by some 34 percent since 2019, according to the World Bank. The country “has been assailed by the most devastating, multi-pronged crisis in its modern history,” said the bank in 2022, before the added devastation brought on by the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.  

What is Lebanon’s government?

Gaining its independence from France during World War II, Lebanon formed a democracy that put religious affiliation at the center of the distribution and dynamics of political power. Per the country’s decades-old power-sharing agreement, the three major religious groups are guaranteed a specific leadership role in each government: the president is always a Maronite Christian; the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim; and the speaker of parliament is a Shia Muslim. The president is elected by parliament and appoints the prime minister in consultation with parliament. The pair then form a cabinet, the government’s chief executive body.

Lebanon has been politically paralyzed since 2022, when its last parliamentary elections failed to produce a majority coalition with a mandate to govern. It has since lacked a president, following the expiration of Michel Aoun’s term that October, and been led by a “caretaker” government with limited powers under Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

For the past twenty years, two major political groups have jockeyed for power in Lebanon: the March 8 Coalition and the March 14 Coalition, both of which have traditionally had a mix of Christian and Muslim members. A major political divergence between the groups has been foreign relations. The March 8 coalition, which has Christian and Shia members, including from Hezbollah, favors ties with Syria and Iran; while the March 14 coalition, which has typically had Christians and more Sunnis, is generally for closer ties with the United States, France, and Saudi Arabia.

What is Hezbollah?

The Iran-backed Shia Islamist group was until recently considered to be the most powerful paramilitary force in the Middle East, with tens of thousands of foot soldiers and a deep arsenal of rockets and missiles. Founded following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the group is driven by its violent opposition to the Jewish state and its resistance to Western influence in the region. Many countries, including Israel and the United States, consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization. 

In addition to its paramilitary operations, Hezbollah also oversees a broad network of social services in Lebanon, including health-care facilities and schools, which accounts for some of its domestic public appeal. Its members also take part in elections and have served in parliament for more than thirty years. Since 2005, Hezbollah has been a part of the March 8 coalition, with its ministers in recent years overseeing cabinet portfolios such as culture, sports and youth, and parliamentary affairs. The group has also disrupted, at times violently, Lebanon’s government— most notably, three Hezbollah members were convicted by a UN tribunal for their involvement in the car bombing assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

Hezbollah started launching cross-border attacks on Israel following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on the country. The Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalated significantly in late 2024, with Israel conducting heavy air strikes and a ground assault against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s longtime leader, was killed in an Israeli strike in September. Hezbollah had said for months that it would not cease its attacks until Israel ended its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but it nonetheless appeared to adhere to a sixty-day cease-fire agreement reached in late November between Israel and the government of Lebanon that would see Hezbollah forces permanently withdraw from the southern territory they have long occupied. Prior to the agreement, Israel said its aim was to push Hezbollah from Lebanon’s border region to prevent the group from launching air assaults on northern Israel.      

What is the Lebanese Armed Forces?

The Lebanese Armed Forces is the country’s all-volunteer national military service and largest employer. Security analysts say that Lebanon’s highly fragmented society and political establishment have kept the LAF from accruing much power, and note it remains a relatively weak force, particularly compared to Hezbollah—although less so following Israel’s 2024 assault.

The LAF has limited resources for traditional defense operations and focuses primarily on providing domestic security, although critics, including Israel, say it has failed (along with UNIFIL) to remove Hezbollah from southern Lebanon since the UN Security Council established a demilitarized zone there in 2006 following Israel’s last major clash with the group. 

The LAF is composed of about eighty thousand personnel and draws recruits from Lebanon’s various religious communities, including Shia Muslim, Sunni Muslim, and Christian. The army is by far the largest component with about 55,000 troops, followed by an internal security force of about 20,000. Nominal air and naval forces have less than two thousand members each.

Despite its deficiencies, the LAF remains Lebanon’s most trusted public institution (about 90 percent have confidence in the military), according to recent polls. The United States views the multiconfessional LAF as a potentially stabilizing counterweight to Hezbollah, and has provided it with some $3 billion in aid since 2006. Washington and its European allies pledged more funding to the LAF in recent weeks, hoping its forces would help secure Lebanon’s southern border region after the conflict. 

The recently agreed-to cease-fire calls for the LAF to deploy ten thousand soldiers across the stretch of Lebanon south of the Litani River, as Israel and Hezbollah withdraw over the next two months. The LAF is to dismantle all of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in this region and remain the only security force there, allowing displaced civilians to return to their homes on both sides of the so-called Blue Line, the de facto border with Israel.  

What is the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon?

UNIFIL is a multinational peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon that, today, is made up of some ten thousand people from fifty countries. The UN Security Council initially created UNIFIL in 1978 to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon following their weeklong ground assault against the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)*, which was based there at the time. Israel invaded Lebanon in response to the PLO’s killing of dozens of Israeli civilians in the so-called Coastal Road massacre.   

Israel launched a larger invasion against the PLO in southern Lebanon again in 1982 and kept its forces there until 2000. Since Israel’s withdrawal, UNIFIL peacekeepers have been tasked with patrolling the Blue Line border region separating Israel and Lebanon. Following a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, the Security Council expanded UNIFIL’s mandate with Resolution (UNSCR) 1701, which called on it to help the LAF secure a demilitarized zone in southern Lebanon between the Blue Line and the Litani River. (This is the same land at the heart of the recent cease-fire agreement.) 

As noted, some critics have faulted UNIFIL (and the LAF) for failing to fulfill its mandate and allowing Hezbollah to remain in the border region. Some security analysts have countered that UNFIL’s mandate is “obscure and unachievable,” noting that the peacekeepers have had restrictions on their ability to enforce it. Blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers can only use force in self-defense and in defense of their legal mandate. UNFIL’s mission has included demining: it has reportedly destroyed more than fifty thousand explosives since 2006. 

Hezbollah remained in southern Lebanon and expanded its military infrastructure there despite UNSCR 1701; Israel said its 2024 invasion aimed in part to finally push Hezbollah from this stretch of land. Israel notified UNIFIL of its intent to cross the Blue Line in September and requested UNIFIL withdraw its forces from the region for their own safety. UNIFIL refused, and in the weeks following, reported that Israeli forces damaged some of its installations and injured its personnel. Israel said it only targeted Hezbollah, but that the group has used UNIFIL forces and infrastructure as a shield. More UN peacekeepers—337—have lost their lives in Lebanon than in any other ongoing UN mission.

As of the implementation of the Israel-Lebanon cease-fire in November 2024, UNIFIL had its forces spread across fifty locations in the roughly one thousand square kilometer area. The agreement effectively calls on the parties to implement UNSCR 1701, and says “UNIFIL’s work pursuant to its mandate will continue.” UNIFIL is to host and coordinate with a cease-fire monitoring group composed of Israel, Lebanon, France, and the United States, with the United States as chair. 

What foreign countries are involved in Lebanon?

Lebanon has been shaped by other and often competing world powers for millennia, and several continue to have influential roles today, most notably Iran, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, France, and the United States.

Iran. Iran’s primary influence on Lebanon has come through its enduring support for Hezbollah, which since the 1980s has pushed pro-Iran policies in the Lebanese government and Shia communities, and has violently opposed Israel on behalf of Iran. Prior to the 1979 revolution that swept Ayatollah Khomeini to power in Iran, refugee camps in southern Lebanon were a hub for Iranian dissidents, Islamists, and others opposed to the Western-backed Pahlavi regime. Khomeini started sending Iran’s revolutionary guards and money into Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley in the early 1980s to spread the Islamic revolution and recruit Shia youth to its cause. The result was the emergence of Hezbollah, a group committed to Khomeini and the destruction of Israel. 

Syria. Syria has also played a central, complex, and meddlesome role in Lebanon’s history, and it continues to have deep ties with its smaller neighbor. As with Lebanon, Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire, came under control of the French in the 1920s, and gained its independence in the 1940s. However, Syrian leaders have long viewed Lebanon as a lost territory and fertile ground for sowing its influence. Syria intervened in Lebanon’s civil war in the mid-1970s and became the dominant force there for decades, particularly after the 1989 Taif Agreement brought that conflict to an end. Syrian forces, which remained until 2005, allowed Damascus to establish a large intelligence regime and corrupt political patronage networks in Beirut. Meanwhile, Syria helped its ally Iran move weapons to Hezbollah, a mutual proxy in their bitter rivalry with Israel. 

Syria’s influence diminished considerably following its precipitous military withdrawal in 2005, which followed mass protests amid allegations it was behind the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri. Hezbollah later played a major role in supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime after the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 2011. Since that conflict, Syria has flooded Lebanon with some 800,000 refugees.

Israel. Israel has had perennially fraught relations with neighboring Lebanon. Lebanon joined several Arab states that attacked Israel unsuccessfully shortly after the latter’s founding in 1948, a war that displaced some 700,000 Arab Palestinians, about 100,000 of which sought refuge in southern Lebanon. Particularly after the June 1967 war, refugee camps in southern Lebanon became a hotbed for anti-Israel Palestinian militants and other armed insurgent groups from around the world. Over the decades, Israel has undertaken several and varied military operations against hostile groups based there, including the PLO and Hezbollah. Israel supported the Kataeb (Phalanges), a right-wing Christian political party and paramilitary group that came to power during Lebanon’s civil war. Israeli forces invaded and occupied Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. They waged a monthlong campaign against Hezbollah in 2006, and are battling the group once again in 2024.

Saudi Arabia. In Lebanon, the Saudis have primarily focused on economic development and countering the influence of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, particularly since the 2005 assassination of Hariri. The twice-serving, billionaire prime minister, who played a central role in brokering the Taif Agreement and rebuilding war-torn Lebanon, had extremely close business and personal ties to the Saudi royal family. Some regional experts say his killing was in effect a declaration of war by Iran (and Hezbollah) on Saudi Arabia. Prior to that, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states had invested billions of dollars to help Lebanon develop its economy and financial sector. Following his death, Riyadh supported the anti-Iran March 14 coalition in parliament, led by Saad Hariri, Rafik’s son, who then also twice served as prime minister. 

France. France has a much more limited influence on what happens in Lebanon today but could perhaps claim the most indelible historical role in that, as one of the major European powers of the early twentieth century, it created and administered what is modern-day Lebanon under a League of Nations mandate following World War I. It also ruled over neighboring Syria. In doing so, the French forcefully integrated what had long been distinct Christian and Muslim regions of Lebanon, laying some of the groundwork for the country’s sectarian-driven politics. Historically, France had close ties to Lebanon’s Maronite Christians, and French remains a widely spoken language in the country behind Arabic and English. French President Emmanuel Macron has sought to maintain France’s diplomatic engagement with Lebanon, pushing for international aid following the Beirut port disaster and during the ongoing Hezbollah-Israel conflict. France cosponsored the recent cease-fire along with the United States, and is part of the agreement’s multilateral monitoring group. 

United States. The United States is the primary foreign backer of the LAF, which it views as a critical guarantor of Lebanon’s sovereignty and the most viable counterweight to Hezbollah and other Islamist militant groups operating in or around the country, such as the self-declared Islamic State known as ISIS, and al-Qaeda. Washington has provided the LAF with some $3 billion in military aid over the last two decades, including training and equipment, and given aid groups in Lebanon another roughly $3 billion in assistance for refugees. 

The Ronald Reagan administration attempted to play a direct peacekeeping role in Lebanon in the early 1980s, deploying hundreds of U.S. troops to support the LAF in the country’s civil war. However, Reagan withdrew all U.S. forces following a series of deadly Hezbollah attacks on U.S. facilities, including the embassy and military barracks in Beirut. More than 250 Americans were killed, the largest toll on the U.S. military since Vietnam.  

The United States continues to support the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions calling for militias in Lebanon including Hezbollah to disarm and disband, and for the LAF to secure all of Lebanon’s territory, particularly in southern Lebanon pursuant to the cease-fire it brokered in late 2024. Washington also serves as chair of the agreement’s monitoring group, saying it is committed to building international support for the LAF and for Lebanon’s economic reconstruction and recovery.

Will Merrow created the graphics for this article.

*A previous version of this article mistakenly called the Palestinian Liberation Organization the Palestinian Liberation Order.