Lebanon faces the difficult challenge of disarming a weakened Hezbollah

Lebanon is experiencing a new and uncertain time in which its largest political and military player is on the ropes. The Hezbollah party-militia reached a ceasefire agreement with the Israeli government last November, but it has not freed it from Israeli troops, with almost daily attacks in what Israel describes as efforts to prevent the group’s rearmament in southern Lebanon. The clampdown on Hezbollah, severely weakened after months of open warfare with Israel, is completed by U.S. leaders and rival factions of the Shia group in Lebanon, who are rubbing their hands with glee at the commitments announced by the country’s new president.

Joseph Aoun, whose election, favored by Washington and Riyadh, was seen as part of the construction of a post-Hezbollah political order, has reaffirmed his intention to move toward a state “monopoly on weapons.” This project is already reflected in the work of the government, which last Thursday held the first session in the country’s history dedicated to the disarmament of the militia.

President Aoun’s latest public appearance caused a stir in the country, where the changes are accompanied by fears of a civil conflict. “The decision has been made,” he warned: “We have made it clear that weapons [in Lebanon] must be exclusively in the hands of the state.” Asked by the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper whether 2025 would be the year of Hezbollah’s disarmament, the president agreed: “I am working on it.” Now, he concluded, all that remains is to “figure out how to implement it,” something that will be achieved through “bilateral discussions between Hezbollah and the presidency.”

The fundamentalist militia is the only Lebanese actor to retain its weapons after the end of the civil war in 1990. Hezbollah’s unique nature has been a recurring source of friction with certain sectors of society, who view its arsenal as a tool of domestic intimidation. But successive governments have recognized the organization’s armed wing as part of the country’s defensive strategy against Israel. That changed in February 2025 with the formation of the first government in decades free from Hezbollah’s influence.

The circumstances, the president himself admits, are “favorable.” The party is isolated and dejected. And in the absence of polls, there is a perceived greater social willingness toward the group’s disarmament following last year’s Israeli offensive, which proved relentless in those communities where Hezbollah has the most followers.

The essence of the truce signed between Israel and Hezbollah remains U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, in force since 2006. The resolution prohibits the presence of Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters south of the Litani River — about 20 miles from the border — and requires the Lebanese army to take control of the territory alongside the U.N. peacekeepers. Both the resolution and the latest truce include a previous resolution, 1559, ordering the disarmament of all Lebanese militias.

Israel Defense Forces attacks frequently target roads and towns in southern Lebanon. The official Israeli version always refers to military targets, but the persistence of its attacks is perceived on the ground as an act of pressure to enforce compliance with all the precepts of the ceasefire. Since the signing of the truce in November, Israeli fire has killed at least 71 civilians in Lebanon, according to data from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Paul Morcos, Lebanese Minister of Information, has raised the death toll to 190. Morcos records more than 2,700 incidents that he classifies as Israeli violations of the ceasefire, and he agrees, along with the president and army leaders, with Hezbollah’s cooperation south of the Litani River.

Morgan Ortagus, Donald Trump’s deputy special envoy for the Middle East, has visited Beirut twice since February to remind Lebanese leaders of the importance of marginalizing Hezbollah. From the Presidential Palace, Ortagus even thanked Washington’s “ally Israel for defeating Hezbollah,” a statement that rankled in Lebanon after the offensive killed some 4,000 people and damaged nearly 100,000 homes, according to the World Bank.

“We will not allow anyone to disarm the resistance”

Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s secretary general, came forward from an unknown location on Friday to counter the president’s statements. In a televised address, Hassan Nasrallah’s successor stated that the party “will not allow” anyone to disarm it, and even warned that the group “will confront those who attack the resistance” in the same way that Hezbollah “has confronted Israel.”

The Lebanese cleric reiterated Hezbollah’s interpretation of the truce with Israel, arguing that it only requires the disarmament of the militia south of the Litani River. Qassem called those who perceive the group as weakened “naive” and left the door open to dialogue with the president about the country’s “defensive strategy,” but only when the “pressure of the Israeli occupation” is removed.

“President Aoun and the government are in a difficult position,” says David Wood, a researcher at the International Crisis Group. “They know there are actors both inside and outside Lebanon pushing for disarmament as soon as possible.” However, “Aoun’s emphasis on dialogue [with Hezbollah] demonstrates that he is committed to a gradual or consensual process, rather than one that risks Lebanon’s deterioration.”

In the past, other disarmament processes that relied on force have proven catastrophic. In 1990, at the end of the civil war, the Lebanese army and the Christian militia of the Lebanese Forces engaged in fighting that stretched from east Beirut to the Phoenician city of Byblos, destroying Christian communities. “The president was a member of the military at the time,” recalls Michael Young, an analyst for The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “His own experience makes him cautious. Aoun doesn’t want a military solution [to disarm Hezbollah] and won’t start a civil war just because the Americans and Israelis pressure him.”

The process seems irreversible. “The Israelis could coerce Lebanon by resuming the conflict or occupying more territory,” Young summarizes. “Furthermore, no one is saying it, but there are political parties in Lebanon that wouldn’t mind if the Israelis finished the job on their own.” Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran, the analyst speculates, could demand a greater share of power from the Shia community in exchange for handing over the militia’s weapons. But this would require tweaking the Constitution and the difficult Lebanese balance, “making it unlikely.”

Ibrahim Mousawi, a Hezbollah parliamentary deputy, denies to EL PAÍS the existence of negotiations or conditions that would make disarmament possible for now. Mousawi claims that Hezbollah “supports the state monopoly on weapons” and adds that weapons “are not an end in themselves,” but points out that the government has never given the army the green light to defend Lebanon from Israel. He mentions as an example “Imam Musa Sadr, one of the founders of political Shiism in Lebanon.”

Before the start of the civil war in 1975, Mousawi recalls, Sadr asked the authorities at the time “to train the residents of southern Lebanon to protect themselves against Israeli attacks,” something Beirut rejected. “The U.S. would never allow the Lebanese army to defend itself,” Mousawi argues, lamenting that the country has never had properly equipped troops. “Why don’t they give us defensive rockets to protect our airspace?”