Can Lebanon succeed in disarming Hezbollah when Israeli troops still hold territory?

Analysis A poster depicting late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and the founder of the Shi'ite Amal movement Imam Musa al-Sadr, is placed on the rubble of damaged building. (Reuters)
A poster depicting late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and the founder of the Shi'ite Amal movement Imam Musa al-Sadr, is placed on the rubble of damaged building. (Reuters)
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Updated 28 May 2025
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Can Lebanon succeed in disarming Hezbollah when Israeli troops still hold territory?

Can Lebanon succeed in disarming Hezbollah when Israeli troops still hold territory?
  • Lebanese army says it has dismantled more than 90 percent of Hezbollah’s infrastructure south of the Litani River

LONDON: Lebanon’s armed forces say they have taken control of several villages near the border with Israel that had long been held by the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia. But behind these official declarations is a more complicated reality — and a fragile peace that may not hold.

On April 30, the Lebanese army announced it had dismantled more than 90 percent of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure south of the Litani River, near the Israeli border. The operation followed a ceasefire in late November between Israel and the militia.

That same day, President Joseph Aoun told Sky News Arabia that the army had deployed across 85 percent of southern Lebanon.

He emphasized that efforts to remove weapons not under state control were taking place nationwide, although the “priority is the southern part of the country” — Hezbollah’s stronghold.




Residents walk amid the rubble of destroyed buldings as they return to the southern Lebanese village of Meis Al-Jabal. (AFP)

“The army, despite its limited resources, is deployed across the entire Lebanese territory, inside the country as well as at the east, north, northeast, and south borders,” Aoun said.

About two weeks later, at the Arab League Summit in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam reaffirmed Lebanon’s commitment to implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701 — the framework for the current truce.

But enforcing that commitment comes with its own set of challenges.

“The president and prime minister’s affirmation of Lebanon’s monopoly on force is a step in the right direction,” Fadi Nicholas Nassar, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Arab News. “But its promise fades the moment Hezbollah’s open defiance goes unchallenged.”

He said the ceasefire offered a prime opportunity to disarm Hezbollah, which continues to resist full disarmament during Israel’s ongoing occupation of parts of Lebanon.




Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam. (AFP) 

“The ceasefire agreement that ended the war must be framed, not as a de-escalation, but as a decisive window for Lebanon to complete Hezbollah’s disarmament — anything less risks another military confrontation Lebanon cannot afford,” he added.

Israel continues to occupy five hilltop positions it deems strategic, despite a Feb. 18 deadline for withdrawal. Aoun said this has prevented the Lebanese army from fully deploying along the border.

Aoun said Lebanon had asked the US and France, the ceasefire’s guarantors, to pressure Israel to pull out. In a recent interview with Egyptian channel ON E, he said Israel’s occupation of the five sites is a major obstacle to border control.

“We are in constant contact with the US to urge it to pressure Israel,” he said, stressing that Lebanon is seeking a durable truce — not normalization of ties.

While Hezbollah has avoided further escalation, its deputy leader Naim Qassem said in February that Israel must withdraw completely, saying “there is no pretext for five points nor other details.”

“Hezbollah has taken serious hits,” Nassar said. “It’s lost much of its arsenal and key figures in its leadership, both vital to its ability to adapt and survive.”




UN peacekeepers drive in vehicles of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) past destroyed buildings while patroling in Lebanon's southern village of Kfar Kila. (AFP) 

Despite this, “it’s still a disciplined, ideologically driven force that can threaten to derail the progress unfolding across the Levant,” he added.

The recent conflict was triggered by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 240 were taken hostage. After Israel retaliated by launching airstrikes and ground incursions against Gaza, Hezbollah began rocket attacks on Israel from the north.

By autumn 2024, the cross-border exchanges had escalated into full-scale war. Over the course of the conflict, Israeli airstrikes killed more than 3,800 Lebanese, injured about 15,700, and displaced nearly 1 million, according to Lebanese health authorities.

The World Bank put Lebanon’s economic losses at $14 billion. Hezbollah, meanwhile, suffered heavy losses to its leadership, fighters, weapons, and public support.




Children hold the Lebanese flag amidst rubble of a destroyed building after families returned with the Lebanese army to the southern village of Marwahin. (AFP) 

A ceasefire was reached on Nov. 27, brokered by Washington and Paris. Anchored in UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war, the deal called for Israel’s full withdrawal and for Hezbollah to relocate fighters north of the Litani River and dismantle all military sites in the south.

However, six months on, Israel still occupies Jal Al-Deir and Jabal Blat in Bint Jbeil district, Labbouneh and Alma Al-Shaab in Tyre, and Hamames Hill and a newly built outpost along the Markaba-Houla road in Marjayoun.

An Israeli military spokesperson said their troops “need to remain at those points at the moment to defend Israeli citizens, to make sure this process is complete and eventually hand it over to the Lebanese armed forces,” Reuters reported.

The UN high commissioner for human rights raised the alarm in April over the increase in Israeli offences since the ceasefire began. At least 71 civilians have been killed and critical infrastructure destroyed, according to a preliminary OHCHR review.

Aoun also reported nearly 3,000 Israeli ceasefire breaches.

Meanwhile, Israel said at least five rockets, two mortars, and a drone have been launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel since the ceasefire.

“Israel should stop carrying out strikes in Lebanon immediately,” David Wood, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, told Arab News. “The whole point of the ceasefire deal was to empower the Lebanese army to exert control over all Lebanese territory, to the exclusion of Hezbollah.”

He said that continued Israeli attacks risk undermining state authority and bolstering Hezbollah’s narrative.

“Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon, even as the army makes progress on implementing the agreement, threaten to undermine the state’s authority,” he said. “Especially in areas facing constant assaults, locals might increasingly view Hezbollah’s armed resistance as their only effective defense against Israeli aggression.”

While Hezbollah has cooperated with army efforts south of the Litani, it refuses to disarm elsewhere until Israel leaves Lebanese soil. Hezbollah chief Qassem insists only his forces can defend Lebanon.




Makram Rabah said Lebanese authorities are failing to meet their obligations under Resolution 1701. (Reuters) 

“Lebanese officials are satisfied that Hezbollah is cooperating with the disarmament process in the area south of the Litani River, which is next to the Lebanese-Israeli border,” Wood said.

“However, Hezbollah refuses to surrender its weapons in the rest of the country, at least until Lebanon’s various political factions have entered into dialogue concerning a new national defense strategy.”

Disarmament is a key demand from the US, Qatar, and other foreign donors. But Lebanese authorities prefer dialogue to confrontation, wary of igniting civil conflict or scaring off badly needed investment.

“Lebanon’s new president and government have made clear that, when it comes to Hezbollah’s disarmament, they prefer cooperation over confrontation,” Wood said.

“They want to achieve the state’s monopoly over arms yet also avoid a potentially dangerous clash between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah.”

FASTFACTS

• Lebanon’s army has taken control of most Hezbollah-held areas in the south, dismantling 90% of its military infrastructure.

• Despite army gains, Hezbollah refuses full disarmament until Israel withdraws from all occupied positions in Lebanon.

Last month, Aoun said the decision to limit the monopoly on weaponry to the state “has been made” and will be carried out “through dialogue, not force.”

Still, international pressure on Lebanon is mounting.

“Lebanon faces growing pressure — chiefly from the US, Israel, and some of Hezbollah’s domestic opponents — to accelerate the disarmament process, even without Hezbollah’s approval,” Wood said.

Last week, Morgan Ortagus, the deputy US special envoy to the Middle East, said Lebanon has “more work to do” to fully disarm Hezbollah, despite making more progress in the past six months than in the previous 15 years.

“We in the US have called for the full disarmament of Hezbollah. And so that doesn’t mean just south of the Litani. That means in the whole country,” Ortagus told the Qatar Economic Forum.




Disarmament is a key demand from the US, Qatar, and other foreign donors. (AFP) 

Aoun, however, cautioned against moving too quickly. He reiterated in his interview with Egypt’s ON E that Hezbollah’s disarmament should proceed through dialogue, not confrontation.

Makram Rabah, an assistant professor at the American University of Beirut, said the army is not expected to “engage in a physical clash with Hezbollah.” Even so, he warned, the state must stop clinging to the notion that disarmament depends solely on Hezbollah’s cooperation.

“The government should stop promoting the idea that disarming Hezbollah requires dialogue — that it only requires coordination with Hezbollah for them to hand over their weapons,” Rabah told Arab News. “If they refuse to do so, they will have to deal with Israel.”

He said Lebanese authorities are failing to meet their obligations under Resolution 1701. “The president of the republic was elected on a platform of establishing full sovereignty, and up until now, he has failed to do so.”




International pressure on Lebanon is mounting.(Reuters)

Elaborating, Rabah said the core problem lies in the government’s reliance on consensus — a strategy, he argued, that plays directly into Hezbollah’s hands.

“It’s clear that Hezbollah’s weapons — which are Iranian in nature — have exposed and devastated Lebanon,” he said. “Once the government starts acting like a real government, there will be no justification for Israel to maintain a physical presence in Lebanon.

“Israel’s continued airstrikes serve as a reminder to the Lebanese authorities that they are failing to do their job,” he added, stressing that “it’s not a question of capability — it’s a question of will.

“Frankly, I don’t think the Lebanese leadership is even serious about confronting the issue, because they expect Israel to handle it for them. And that, ultimately, is deeply damaging to Lebanon as a sovereign state.”

 


Norway fund’s ethics body reviews Israeli bank stakes over West Bank settler loans

Norway fund’s ethics body reviews Israeli bank stakes over West Bank settler loans
Updated 4 sec ago
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Norway fund’s ethics body reviews Israeli bank stakes over West Bank settler loans

Norway fund’s ethics body reviews Israeli bank stakes over West Bank settler loans
  • Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem

OSLO/LONDON/JERUSALEM: The ethics watchdog for Norway’s $1.9 trillion wealth fund is scrutinizing Israeli banks’ practice of underwriting Israeli settlers’ housebuilding commitments in the occupied West Bank in a review that could prompt up to $500 million in divestments.

The Council on Ethics, a public body set up by the Ministry of Finance, has, however, decided not to object to the Fund’s investments in accommodation platforms such as Airbnb that offer rentals in the Jewish settlements.

The body checks that firms in the portfolio of the world’s largest wealth fund meet ethical guidelines set by Norway’s parliament.

In an interview with Reuters on May 22, Council head Svein Richard Brandtzaeg said it was examining how Israeli banks offer guarantees that protect Israeli settlers’ money if the company building their home in the West Bank should fold.

Other practices are also being looked at “but this is what we can see so far,” he said. “That is what is well documented.” He declined to say how long the review would take.

Brandtzaeg did not name the banks but, at the end of 2024, the fund owned about 5 billion crowns ($500 million) in shares in the five largest Israeli lenders, up 62 percent in 12 months, according to the latest data.

The banks — Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Israel Discount Bank, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank and First International Bank of Israel — did not answer requests for comment.

Since 2020, they have been included in a list of companies with ties to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories compiled by a UN mission assessing the implications for Palestinian rights.

Latterly, investor concern has grown around the world over a 19-month-old Israeli onslaught that has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the Gaza Strip in response to an attack by Hamas militants that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Many settlements are adjacent to Palestinian areas and some Israeli firms serve both Israelis and Palestinians.
The United Nations’ top court last year found that Israeli settlements built on territory seized in 1967 were illegal, a ruling that Israel called “fundamentally wrong,” citing historical and biblical ties to the land.

ACCOMMODATION RENTALS IN WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS

In mid-2024, the Council on Ethics began a new review of investments linked to the West Bank and Gaza.

It examined 65 companies but recommended only petrol station chain Paz and telecoms company Bezeq for divestment, resulting in share sales.

The Council also scrutinized some multinationals to see if their activities in the West Bank met its guidelines.

Among them were the accommodation platforms, including Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdviser and Expedia, named on the UN list and accounting for about $3 billion in Fund investments.

But the Council will not recommend watchlisting or divesting from those, Eli Ane Lund, head of its secretariat, said in the joint interview.

“The company’s activity must have some kind of influence on the (ethical) violations,” she said. “It’s not (enough) to have a connection, it has to have something to do with the violation, it must contribute to it.”

The Council’s recommendations go to the central bank, which is not obliged to follow them but generally does.

If investments are sold, it is done gradually to avoid alerting markets, and the decision is then made public.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners say the Council sets its bar too high for recommending divestments, and that the Norwegian government should instruct the fund to conduct a general divestment from Israel just as it did for Russia in 2022, three days after Moscow invaded Ukraine.

But most lawmakers support the Council’s approach, and are set on Wednesday to formally endorse a parliamentary finance committee’s decision not to order a wholesale boycott.


Syrian pro-Assad fighter jailed for life in Germany for crimes against humanity

Syrian pro-Assad fighter jailed for life in Germany for crimes against humanity
Updated 03 June 2025
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Syrian pro-Assad fighter jailed for life in Germany for crimes against humanity

Syrian pro-Assad fighter jailed for life in Germany for crimes against humanity

BERLIN: A German court on Tuesday convicted a Syrian man of crimes against humanity and jailed him for life over offenses committed during his time fighting for former President Bashar Assad.
The court in the city of Stuttgart found the former militiaman guilty of crimes including murder and torture after a trial which involved testimony from 30 witnesses.
Shortly after the outbreak of anti-Assad protests in early 2011, the man joined a pro-government Shia militia in the southern town of Bosra Al-Sham.
He proceeded to take part in several crimes against the local Sunni population with the aim of “terrorizing” them and driving them from the town, the court found.
German authorities have pursued several suspects for crimes committed in Syria’s civil war under the principle of universal jurisdiction, even after Assad’s ouster last December.
In 2022, former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan was found guilty of overseeing the murders of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others at the notorious Al-Khatib jail in 2011 and 2012.
That was the first international trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons and was hailed as “historic” by human rights activists.


More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says

More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says
Updated 03 June 2025
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More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says

More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says

GENEVA: The number of people who have fled Sudan since the beginning of the war has surpassed 4 million, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.
UNHCR spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing that the milestone was reached on Monday and that the scale of displacement was “putting regional and global stability at stake.”


US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy

US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy
Updated 03 June 2025
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US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy

US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy

ISTANBUL: The United States has begun reducing its military presence in Syria with a view to eventually closing all but one of its bases there, the US envoy for the country has said in an interview.
Six months after the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, the United States is steadily drawing down its presence as part of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), a military task force launched in 2014 to fight the Daesh group (IS).
“The reduction of our OIR engagement on a military basis is happening,” the US envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, said in an interview with Turkiye’s NTV late on Monday.
“We’ve gone from eight bases to five to three. We’ll eventually go to one.”
But he admitted Syria still faced major security challenges under interim leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad in December.
Assad’s ouster brought an end to Syria’s bloody 14-year civil war, but the new authorities have struggled to contain recent bouts of sectarian violence.
Barrack, who is also the US ambassador to Turkiye, called for the “integration” of the country’s ethnic and religious groups.
“It’s very tribal still. It’s very difficult to bring it together,” he said.
But “I think that will happen,” he added.
The Pentagon announced in April that the United States would halve its troops in Syria to less than 1,000 in the coming months, saying the IS presence had been reduced to “remnants.”


Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects

Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects
Updated 03 June 2025
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Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects

Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects
  • UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned the killing of more 30 Palestinians
  • He called for an “immediate and independent investigation” into the incident

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Palestinian health officials and witnesses say Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site on Tuesday, killing at least 27, in the third such incident in three days.

The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.

The near-daily shootings have come after an Israeli and US-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas.

The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn’t address Gaza’s mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.

The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of casualties on Tuesday.

It previously said it fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces early Sunday and Monday, when health officials and witnesses said 34 people were killed.

The military denies opening fire on civilians or blocking them from reaching the aid sites.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday,

it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,” in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site.”

‘Either way we will die’ The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (1,000 yards) from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah.

The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.

At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Zaher Al-Waheidi, the head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.

Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said its field hospital in Rafah received 184 wounded people, 19 of whom were declared dead on arrival and eight more who later died of their wounds.

The 27 dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis. Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian from Rafah, said the shooting started around 4 a.m. in the city’s Flag Roundabout area, around one kilometer (1,000 yards) away from the aid distribution hub.

He said he saw several people killed or wounded. Neima Al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, gave a similar account.

“There were many martyrs and wounded,” she said, saying the shooting by Israeli forces was “indiscriminate.”

She said she managed to reach the hub but returned empty-handed.

“There was no aid there,” she said. “After the martyrs and wounded, I won’t return,” she said.

“Either way we will die.” Rasha Al-Nahal, another witness, said “there was gunfire from all directions.”

She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road.

She said she also found no aid when she arrived at the distribution hub, and that Israeli forces “fired at us as we were returning.” 3 Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza

The Israeli military meanwhile said Tuesday that three of its soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel’s forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March.

The military said the three soldiers, all in their early 20s, fell during combat in northern Gaza on Monday, without providing details.

Israeli media reported that they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area.

Israel ended the ceasefire in March after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner.

Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel that ignited the war.

They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.

The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government.

Its toll is seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers.

Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.