As UNIFIL Nears Exit, Lebanon's Tyre Faces an Economic Turning Point
As the UN prepares to end UNIFIL's mandate in southern Lebanon by late 2026, the historic city of Tyre faces a major economic reckoning alongside security concerns, having relied on peacekeepers for decades.
For thousands of years, Tyre in southern Lebanon was one of the most important cities of the Phoenician world. From here, ships sailed to establish colonies across the Mediterranean, including the famous Carthage. Today, it is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, featuring impressive archaeological remains, one of the largest Roman hippodromes in the world, and a sandy coastline considered one of the most beautiful in Lebanon. On paper, almost all the ingredients for tourist success are present: millennia of history, the sea, a Mediterranean climate, heritage sites, and a local atmosphere. Yet for decades, the security reality stood between Tyre and its tourism potential.
The End of an Era in Southern Lebanon
The UN Security Council has decided that the current mandate of UNIFIL will be its last. According to Resolution 2790, the force is scheduled to cease operations on December 31, 2026, after which an orderly and safe withdrawal of its personnel is set to begin, expected to take up to a year. The termination of UNIFIL's activities may be much more than a shift in the security architecture along the Israel-Lebanon border. It could also bring about the gradual disappearance of an economic presence that has existed in southern Lebanon since 1978. In Israel, UNIFIL has traditionally been viewed almost exclusively through a security lens: whether it succeeded in reining in Hezbollah, implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and contributing to stability along the border.
In Tyre, the force can also be viewed through another lens—the economic one. For hotel owners, restaurateurs, taxi drivers, apartment owners, construction companies, suppliers, and shop owners, UNIFIL was never just a peacekeeping force. It was also a client. For nearly 50 years, soldiers, officers, civilian employees, and members of the international community consumed services, rented properties, ate in restaurants, and purchased goods and services from local businesses in an area repeatedly battered by wars, instability, and economic crises.
For nearly five decades, an entire economic system developed around the international presence: hotels, restaurants, transportation services, food suppliers, rental apartments, contractors, and local businesses.
The Irony of Tyre
Perhaps the greatest irony of Tyre lies right here. One of the great trading cities of the ancient Mediterranean, a place that for thousands of years depended on foreign merchants, sailors, and visitors, found itself in modern times relying in part on a different kind of foreign visitor: peacekeepers, UN personnel, and the international community that developed around them. The force intended to help maintain security also became part of the economic landscape of the population among which it operated.
Now, this relationship is coming to an end. UNIFIL is slated to halt its operations at the end of 2026, though discussions continue regarding what international mechanism, if any, might replace it in the future. In the meantime, southern Lebanon remains unstable. And when an international force becomes one of the most important sources of livelihood in its surroundings for decades, its departure is not merely a security matter. It may also be a significant economic event for the city. For Tyre, which relied for millennia on visitors arriving from across the sea, the big question now is who will come after them.
