Blue Line

The Blue Line is a boundary of withdrawal, not an international border. It was published by the United Nations on 7 June 2000 to confirm that Israel had withdrawn its forces from southern Lebanon in compliance with Security Council Resolution 425 (1978) and Resolution 426 (1978), which had originally created the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) after Israel's 1978 invasion.

The line was drawn by a UN cartographic team led by then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan's representatives, working from the 1923 Paulet–Newcombe boundary between the French and British mandates and the 1949 Israel–Lebanon Armistice line. Because it is a practical line of withdrawal, the UN has consistently stressed that it does not prejudice any future agreed border between Lebanon and Israel.

Several points along the Blue Line remain contested. The most prominent is the Shebaa Farms area, which Lebanon and Syria claim as Lebanese territory but which the UN treats as Syrian land occupied by Israel since 1967, placing it under the framework of Resolution 242 rather than 425. Ghajar village, straddling the line, is another flashpoint.

After the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah, Security Council Resolution 1701 reinforced UNIFIL's mandate to monitor cessation of hostilities along the Blue Line and assist the Lebanese Armed Forces in deploying south of the Litani River. UNIFIL conducts regular tripartite meetings with Israeli and Lebanese military officers at Ras al-Naqoura to manage incidents.

Violations — overflights, ground incursions, stone-throwing, and exchanges of fire — are routinely logged in the Secretary-General's reports on Resolution 1701 implementation. The line became acutely volatile after October 2023, when cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces escalated alongside the Gaza war, culminating in a broader Israel–Hezbollah confrontation in 2024 and a ceasefire announced in late November 2024.