*Event date: 2025-02-15.*
Lebanese authorities arrested more than 25 people after an attack on a UN peacekeeping convoy near Beirut’s airport wounded two peacekeepers, including a senior commander. The incident has intensified tensions in a country already struggling with political pressure, airport access disputes and the spillover from regional conflict.
The convoy was carrying UNIFIL deputy commander Major-General Chok Bahadur Dhakal to the airport when protesters attacked it and set his UN vehicle on fire. Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar said more than 25 people were detained by army intelligence and another by the security services, though he stressed that detention did not yet prove who carried out the assault. The Lebanese army said it had contacted UNIFIL and pledged to arrest those responsible.
The trigger for the protest was a decision by Lebanese authorities to stop Iranian planes landing in Beirut after the Israeli military accused Tehran of using civilian flights to smuggle funds to Hezbollah. Supporters of Hezbollah blocked the road to the airport for a second day, and the attack on the convoy followed quickly. UNIFIL condemned the violence as a flagrant violation of international law and said such attacks may amount to war crimes.
The political reaction was fast. President Joseph Aoun said security forces would not tolerate attempts to destabilise the country and pledged punishment for the attackers. The United States also condemned the assault, saying it had injured peacekeepers and describing the attackers as reportedly Hezbollah supporters. Hezbollah itself tried to distance the movement from the violence, while the Amal Movement said the attack on UNIFIL was an attack on southern Lebanon and called for the perpetrators to be pursued.
UNIFIL has long been a sensitive institution in Lebanon and on the Israeli border. It was created after Israel’s 1978 invasion and expanded after the 2006 war to support Lebanese authority in the south. That history helps explain why an attack on peacekeepers can quickly become a broader security issue. For now, the arrests show that Lebanon wants to be seen as responding, even if the deeper political dispute around the airport road remains unresolved.
The attack also lands in the middle of a fragile security environment around Lebanon's only airport. Hezbollah supporters had blocked the road after the government stopped Iranian planes from landing because of Israeli allegations about smuggling funds, and the convoy attack gave the dispute a violent edge. UNIFIL’s long history in Lebanon, from the 1978 Israeli withdrawal mission to the post-2006 border deployment, explains why assaults on peacekeepers provoke immediate international reaction. The arrests may calm the moment, but they do not resolve the underlying struggle over authority and access.
UNIFIL's presence in Lebanon is rooted in a long and uneasy history. The mission was created after Israel's 1978 invasion and expanded after the 2006 war to support the Lebanese military along the Israeli border, which means attacks on peacekeepers are treated as attacks on a much broader international arrangement. That is why the United States, Lebanon, the UN and local political actors all responded quickly. The arrests may address the immediate assault, but the argument over the airport road and Hezbollah's pressure on the state remains very much alive.
