Lebanon's balancing act: Will Hezbollah ever disarm?

Beirut, Lebanon - Five months after being tasked by the government to disarm all non-state actors in the country, including Hezbollah, the Lebanese army announced that it had completed the first phase of the plan, which consisted of the border area south of the Litani River.

The military is now preparing to begin the second phase of its disarmament strategy – the rest of the south between the Awali and Litani rivers – despite Israeli claims that the first phase is far from complete.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have struck a defiant tone on the issue of disarmament, consistently stressing that the Lebanese army must hold a monopoly on arms in the country.

However, Hezbollah has consistently expressed its refusal to cooperate beyond the first phase of the disarmament process, stating that it would not hold talks on the topic so long as Israeli attacks on Lebanon and the occupation of several points along the border persist.

This has put the Lebanese government in an uncomfortable situation where it wants to continue the process, but in doing so, runs the risk of starting an internal conflict.

“There is no intention of disarming Hezbollah by force,” Michael Young, a senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Centre, told The New Arab.

“The point is basically to buy time to continue with the process of collecting weapons in the hopes that the political situation will shift to their advantage.”

Israel wants a free hand militarily

While Lebanon seeks to continue the second phase of the disarmament plan, Israel insists that there is still significant Hezbollah infrastructure located in the border region.

According to Young, this is because Israel wants to perpetuate the narrative that it is the only actor that is truly capable of disarming Hezbollah.

Paul Salem, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, argues that this position extends to Israel wanting to maintain the current status quo.

“[Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu clearly doesn’t want to transition into diplomacy. He wants to have a continued free hand militarily and not have to stick to any diplomatic tracks, at least not at this point,” he told The New Arab.

Israel has been carrying out unilateral airstrikes throughout the country targeting Hezbollah infrastructure, with the Lebanese state’s requests to be informed largely ignored.

If Israel did coordinate with the Lebanese, Salem explained, then eventually it would get to the point where questions start to arise about Israel’s continued occupation of several points along the border.

“They don’t want to get there,” he added. “They’d rather say ‘Hell no. You haven’t done it; plus, we’re not going to share any intel with you. We just prefer to say that you haven’t done it because that way we can continue to occupy, at least until the [Israeli legislative] elections.’”

Israel has also jumped on recent comments by Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji in which he told Sky News Arabia that Israel “unfortunately has the right” to bomb Lebanon until Hezbollah is completely disarmed, using it not only as justification to continue its daily campaign of airstrikes, but to argue that the first phase of the disarmament plan was incomplete.

These duelling narratives largely stem from how Lebanon and Israel define the completion of the first stage.

Differing definitions

The Lebanese army, even as it seeks to disarm Hezbollah, is not looking to militarily confront the group

For the army, this is not just a disarmament plan but, rather, a strategy to ensure that the state has complete operational control over the country.

According to Salem, this means that the Lebanese army must have complete control in the areas that it operates in, with no other group able to launch attacks. When the Lebanese army says that the first phase of the plan is complete, it acknowledges that there could be weapons depots that it has yet to find.

“They’re talking about basic operational control and security,” Salem said. “Israel comes back and says that there is a Hezbollah guy in that bedroom. Okay. The Lebanese army is not going to go kill a Hezbollah guy in some bedroom. The Israelis will.”

This is why France has been pushing for the ceasefire mechanism to be transformed into an objective body that could be used to document what the Lebanese army is doing and push back against Israeli claims.

Instead, it has largely been used by the Americans and Israelis to pressure Lebanon into normalisation talks with Israel despite consistent Lebanese opposition to the issue.

“The Lebanese certainly want to disarm Hezbollah, but what they see is that the deck is stacked against them because the Israelis and the Americans are always in agreement,” Young explained.

“This is really being managed in a very amateurish fashion by the Americans. They’re just basically giving Israel a blank check.”

Even with continued Israeli attacks and a refusal to adhere to the original 27 November 2024 ceasefire agreement, Lebanon is intent on pushing ahead with establishing control over the entirety of the country.

However, while Hezbollah was willing to play along during the first phase of the government’s plan, it has been vocally opposed to any further steps.

“This is a critical phase because phase one was by agreement, and phase two, so far, is not by agreement,” Salem stated.

A battle of wills

Currently, the Lebanese state’s biggest obstacle in achieving its goal of being the sole military power in the country is Hezbollah’s unwillingness to cooperate.

This has forced the army, outside of the area south of the Litani, to work extremely slowly to avoid the risk of an internal conflict.

“They’re progressing slowly but surely so that no one can say that Lebanon is not doing anything,” Young said. 

“They’re trying to arrive at some sort of agreement with Hezbollah on its weapons, which will probably not come today, given that Iran feels under threat and is not going to make concessions on this front without something in exchange.”

But even with Hezbollah’s vocal opposition to cooperating with the government, the group has so far not taken any actions to impede its efforts, Salem said, whether that be pulling its members from the government, which could force the government into a caretaker status, or the more extreme option of confronting the army.

Still, the government is wary about pushing too hard, as it is unclear if Hezbollah’s calculations could change if forced into a corner.

Both the Lebanese government and Iran, which would have the final say as to whether Hezbollah would voluntarily give up its weapons, are hoping that by remaining patient, something might change to force the other side to blink first.

For the Lebanese government, if Hezbollah remains inactive, then eventually the army could be deployed throughout the country to the point that the group would not be able to launch rockets or carry out any sort of military operation against Israel, even if it wanted to.

Iran, meanwhile, is hoping that if Hezbollah holds out for long enough, then there could be some sort of shift in Lebanon or Syria that would help them find a way out of the current predicament.

Until one of these things happens, Hezbollah is trying to stall the process for as long as possible, though the party has put out feelers for what it could receive in return for giving up its weapons. However, if this strategy continues, it could be a way for Hezbollah to derail the disarmament process entirely.

“They could be doing this in bad faith, knowing that once they make demands - constitutional reforms that would give them more power - everyone else is going to make demands of their own,” Young stated.

Any discussion of restructuring the delicate power-sharing system in Lebanon would likely turn into a prolonged debate that would ignite significant sectarian tensions in the country, with no guarantees of ever concluding.

The Lebanese government has green-lit the second phase of the disarmament plan, set to begin in February, but with Hezbollah's continued opposition and the threat of a new conflict with Israel looming large, its success remains far from guaranteed.

“At this point, the Lebanese are clearly trying to buy time,” Young said.

Nicholas Frakes is a journalist and photojournalist based in Lebanon, reporting on the Middle East

Follow him on X: @nicfrakesjourno

Edited by Charlie Hoyle