Beirut committed to disarming the country’s strongest military organization, Israel promised to withdraw from occupied territories, and the US secured a neat diplomatic formula. The problem is that neither side intends to take the first step.
On June 26, 2026, Lebanon and Israel signed a framework agreement brokered by the United States that appears almost flawless on paper. Israel is required to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon in phases. The vacated areas are to transition under the control of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Beirut, in turn, is obligated to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, seize its weapons, and prevent the return of the Shiite group.
This is what diplomacy looks like. Reality is structured differently.
Israel does not intend to leave as long as Hezbollah retains rockets, drones, tunnels, combat units, and the capability to attack the country’s northern regions. Hezbollah has no intention of disarming while Israel holds Lebanese territory and continues to execute strikes. The Lebanese government lacks the force to compel the group’s capitulation without risking an internal armed conflict. Meanwhile, a significant portion of the Shiite community perceives the demand for disarmament not as the restoration of statehood, but as collective punishment following a devastating war.
Consequently, Beirut faces a choice with no safe outcome. If the state refuses to disarm Hezbollah, the Israeli occupation will continue. If the military attempts to enforce the agreement by strength, Lebanon could once again find itself on the brink of civil war. If the authorities simulate compliance with their obligations, the country will remain stripped of reconstruction, foreign investment, and financial assistance.
The signed document did not resolve the Lebanese crisis. It merely converted the country’s internal contradiction into an international obligation.
The Agreement Begins Where the State’s Capabilities End
The model proposed by Washington relies on a sequence of reciprocal measures. Israeli forces withdraw from a verified sector, the Lebanese army enters, seizes Hezbollah’s weaponry, and establishes permanent control over the area. The American side participates in monitoring and coordination.
On July 20, Lebanese units initiated deployment across the first set of pilot zones surrounding the villages of Froun, Srifa, and Zautar al-Gharbiyeh. Israeli forces vacated a portion of their positions, after which the Lebanese army moved in. In Zautar al-Gharbiyeh, local authorities reported that more than half of the built environment had been destroyed. Returning residents found not a liberated settlement, but an expanse of ruins, unexploded ordnance, and shattered infrastructure. For Washington, these zones served as proof that the agreement can be implemented. For Beirut, a means to demonstrate at least limited capability to international partners. For Israel, an experiment: can the Lebanese army hold the territory and prevent Hezbollah’s return?
However, three villages do not equal southern Lebanon. The relocation of several military units does not equate to the liquidation of the complex military-political system that Hezbollah spent more than forty years constructing.
The group is not merely armed men along the border. It comprises command posts, supply depots, intelligence networks, tunnels, enterprises, charitable foundations, schools, medical facilities, mass media outlets, and a political party. Its structures are situated not only south of the Litani River, but also in the Beqaa Valley, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and other regions.
Therefore, Israel’s condition effectively demands not a localized demilitarization of the border strip, but the complete dismantling of Hezbollah’s entire military architecture. For such a project, the Lebanese state possesses neither the enforcement capacity, nor political consensus, nor financial resources.
A State Without a Monopoly on Arms
Modern Lebanon emerged as a system of distributed sovereignty. State institutions exist alongside religious communities, political dynasties, regional patrons, and armed structures. The presidency is held by a Maronite Christian, the premiership by a Sunni Muslim, and the speakership of parliament by a Shiite Muslim. Parliamentary seats are allocated according to confessional quotas.
This system helped end the 1975–1990 civil war, but simultaneously entrenched the weakness of the state. Political elites secured guaranteed shares of power, while state institutions turned into mechanisms for distributing offices, contracts, budgets, and patronage.
Following the civil war, most militias were officially disarmed. Hezbollah retained its military structure under the pretext of resisting the Israeli occupation, which lasted until 2000. Subsequently, the justification shifted to disputed border territories, the defense of Lebanon, and confrontation with Israel.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted after the 2006 war, stipulated that no armed forces or weaponry should exist between the Litani River and the Blue Line other than those of the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers. This mandate was never fulfilled. Hezbollah restored its missile arsenals, constructed underground infrastructure, and transformed into the most powerful non-state military organization in the Middle East. For decades, Lebanese leadership avoided direct confrontation with the group. Governments integrated formulas affirming the right of resistance to defend the country, the army refrained from attempting to disarm Shiite units, and Hezbollah’s political opponents either sought compromise, departed the country, or fell victim to violence.
The election of Joseph Aoun as president in January 2025 altered the official rhetoric. The former commander of the armed forces declared the necessity of restoring the state’s exclusive right to arms. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, former President of the International Court of Justice, likewise advocated for the recovery of state sovereignty and the implementation of Resolution 1701. Aoun was elected with 99 out of 128 votes, while Salam’s candidacy received support from 84 deputies - a rare manifestation of cross-confessional consensus for Lebanon. Yet a political mandate does not equal military force. The government can issue a decree. The army can set up a checkpoint. It can enter a village vacated by Israel. But an order to assault Hezbollah’s fortified areas would signal the commencement of an internal war with an unpredictable outcome.
The 2024 War Destroyed the Myth, but Not the Organization
On October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas attack on Israel, Hezbollah opened a support front for the Gaza Strip. The group intended to conduct a limited war, keeping Israel under pressure without crossing the threshold into a full-scale conflict.
That strategy failed.
In the fall of 2024, Israel dramatically expanded its strikes, eliminated a major portion of Hezbollah’s senior command, assassinated Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and inflicted heavy damage on its missile forces, depots, communications, and command infrastructure. A critical component of the myth on which the group built its political influence - the notion of a strategic balance with Israel - was shattered.
However, defeat did not result in the collapse of the organization. Hezbollah was not constructed around a single leader. It possesses a bureaucracy, a chain of command, an ideological apparatus, funding sources, a social infrastructure, and Iranian backing. Following Nasrallah’s death, Naim Qassem assumed the role of Secretary-General. Command hierarchies were restructured, and operational military functions were delegated to lesser-known field commanders.
The ceasefire, which lasted from late November 2024 until March 2026, was utilized to rebuild capabilities. Traditional supply routes for weaponry became complicated after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, prompting the group to rely more heavily on low-cost technologies that can be assembled inside Lebanon.
By the spring of 2026, Hezbollah began deploying fiber-optic-guided FPV drones. Such devices are virtually immune to conventional electronic warfare systems. Their production cost may amount to a few hundred dollars, while their potential targets include armored vehicles valued in the millions. In late March, the group released footage showing the employment of such a drone against an Israeli tank. This did not restore its former missile superiority, but created a new problem for Israel: a low-cost war of attrition. Hezbollah does not need to defeat the Israeli military. It only needs to regularly kill soldiers, damage equipment, and prove that the occupied territory has not become secure.
How Hezbollah Lost Alienated Votes
Hezbollah’s military might was always only one component of its influence. The second pillar consisted of alliances with politicians of other confessions.
The most vital was the 2006 agreement with the Free Patriotic Movement, founded by Michel Aoun. The largest Christian party provided Hezbollah with what it lacked most: cross-confessional legitimacy. In return, the group assisted Michel Aoun in securing the presidency in 2016.
This alliance allowed the group to assert that the armed resistance represented not only Shiites, but all of Lebanon. Critics of Hezbollah’s weapons were depicted as supporters of Israel, the United States, or Saudi Arabia.
Yet the relationship began to fracture even before the war. The new leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, sought to succeed Michel Aoun as president, whereas Hezbollah backed Sleiman Frangieh. After October 2023, the political cost of the alliance became excessively high.
The majority of Lebanese sympathized with the Palestinians, but did not want their own country transformed into a battlefield. The devastation of the southern regions, strikes on Beirut, mass displacement, and economic losses decisively undermined the claim that Hezbollah’s unilateral decisions guaranteed Lebanon’s security.
In the 2022 parliamentary elections, the group and its allies secured about 62 out of 128 seats, losing the 71-seat majority they held following the 2018 elections. Simultaneously, a group of candidates linked to the 2019 protest movement entered parliament. Those protests began over an attempted tax on internet calls, but rapidly evolved into a nationwide uprising against corruption, sectarian power-sharing, and economic plunder. Hezbollah activists participated in attacks on demonstrators, inflicting additional reputational damage on the group.
It also lost a portion of its Sunni partners and influence among the Druze. As early as 2022, Hezbollah’s primary ally in the Druze community, Talal Arslan, lost to independent candidate Mark Daou. Sunni politician Faisal Karami later began demonstratively aligning with Saudi Arabia and backed the demand for a state monopoly on arms.
Following the fall of the Assad regime, the former Syrian center of gravity vanished as well. Politicians who had oriented themselves toward Damascus and Tehran for decades began seeking new patrons. Saudi Arabia renewed its engagement in Lebanon, supported the election of Joseph Aoun, and signaled that financial aid would depend on reforms and the restriction of Hezbollah’s power.
The group retained its core influence, but its former coalition dissolved. It became more strictly Shiite, more dependent on Iran, and less capable of speaking on behalf of all Lebanon.
March 2: Someone Else’s War Returned to Lebanon
A new catastrophe began on March 2, 2026, following joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel, effectively opening the Lebanese front of a regional war.
For many Lebanese, the choice of target and timing served as definitive proof that the group operates not in the national interest, but as part of an Iranian military system. President Joseph Aoun characterized the events as someone else’s war. The government banned Hezbollah’s military activities and reaffirmed that decisions regarding war and peace belong exclusively to the state.
Israel responded with strikes across southern and eastern Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, subsequently expanding its ground operations. The scale of destruction surpassed the consequences of the 2024 war.
By mid-July, according to UN experts, more than 4,300 people had been killed in Lebanon. Approximately 1.2 million residents were forced to flee their homes. The dead included civilians, medical personnel, and journalists. The exact ratio of combatants to non-combatants remains a subject of dispute. Israeli casualties were incomparably lower. By June 20, Israeli authorities reported the deaths of at least 32 military personnel and four civilians. Yet it is precisely this asymmetry that explains Hezbollah’s logic. Israel is capable of inflicting immeasurably greater damage on Lebanon, but every loss of an Israeli soldier creates internal political pressure on its government. Hezbollah transformed Lebanon’s human and infrastructural catastrophe into a resource for its own strategy. The longer Israel remains on Lebanese territory, destroying homes and conducting strikes, the easier it is for the group to argue that its weapons remain necessary.
The Shiite Trap: Nothing Can Be Done Without Berri
Beirut’s primary challenge lies not in making the decision to disarm, but in conferring Shiite legitimacy upon it.
All 27 parliamentary seats reserved for Shiites are controlled by Hezbollah and the Amal Movement. Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri leads Amal and has held his position since 1992. He is among the country’s most experienced and influential politicians.
In the late 1980s, Amal and Hezbollah fought each other for control over Shiite areas. Later, they forged a durable political alliance. Amal does not possess a comparable missile arsenal or heavy military infrastructure, but it controls state positions, administrative networks, municipalities, and a major segment of the Shiite electorate in the south.
Without Berri’s support, securing parliamentary legitimacy for the agreement with Israel is impossible. He has the capacity to delay legislation, block decisions, and convert a government initiative into a sectarian conflict.
According to a published poll by Information International, 92.9 percent of Shiite respondents opposed negotiations with Israel, and 87.5 percent were against disarming Hezbollah. Among Sunnis, 54.4 percent supported negotiations.
These figures cannot be attributed solely to propaganda. Shiite areas bore the brunt of casualties and destruction. Hundreds of thousands lost homes, employment, and their established way of life. Many lost relatives. In such an environment, the demand to disarm is perceived as an invitation to surrender to a state that for decades failed to provide these areas with schools, hospitals, infrastructure, and social protection.
Hezbollah filled that vacuum. Its medical facilities treated the sick. Its schools educated children. Its foundations disbursed compensation. Its political intermediaries facilitated access to state services. Its armed units promised protection.
To disarm the group, the state must first prove that it is capable of replacing it - not merely at checkpoints, but in everyday life. For now, Beirut demands capitulation without offering a viable social alternative.
The Lebanese Army Cannot Accomplish What Israel Could Not
The Israeli military surpasses the Lebanese Armed Forces in troop strength, aviation, intelligence, technology, firepower, and funding. Yet even Israel could not fully eradicate Hezbollah.
To demand that the Lebanese army accomplish this is to ignore reality.
Since 2019, Lebanon has experienced one of the most severe financial crises in modern history. According to International Monetary Fund estimates, real gross domestic product contracted by roughly 40 percent following the onset of the crisis, while the parallel exchange rate lost nearly 98 percent of its value. The banking system effectively froze a significant portion of citizens’ savings. The Lebanese pound, pegged for decades at around 1,500 to the dollar, depreciated to tens of thousands per dollar. Public sector and military salaries collapsed in dollar terms. The army relies on foreign aid, donations, fuel, and food support from partners.
Under these conditions, a soldier is expected to enter a Shiite village, locate a weapons cache, detain individuals who may be relatives or neighbors, and open fire if they resist.
The army possesses neither the material incentive nor the political cover for such an operation. Its command understands that the first serious engagement between the army and Hezbollah could fracture units along sectarian lines.
Lebanon already has a historical warning. In May 2008, the government attempted to shut down Hezbollah’s independent telecommunications network. In response, militants occupied western Beirut, attacked supporters of government parties, and clashed with Druze formations in the mountains. Dozens died. The cabinet backed down.
Naim Qassem has repeatedly warned that an attempt at forcible disarmament would lead to civil strife. This is not merely a propaganda threat. The group is demonstrating to the government the price that would have to be paid to enforce the agreement.
Israel Is Also Entering a Strategic Trap
Israeli logic is clear. Following the attacks of October 7, 2023, Israeli society no longer accepts the former model of border deterrence. Promises from international observers, Lebanese authorities, or peacekeepers are no longer viewed as sufficient guarantees.
The government demands the physical destruction of Hezbollah’s infrastructure, the dismantling of tunnels, the seizure of rockets, and sustained control over the territory from which northern Israel could be attacked.
Yet an indefinite occupation poses a threat that Israel has experienced before.
In 1982, the Israeli military entered Lebanon expecting to eliminate Palestinian military infrastructure and alter the political order in Beirut. Troops gradually withdrew to the south, where they held a so-called security zone until May 2000. It was precisely resistance to this occupation that transformed Hezbollah from a radical Shiite movement into a formidable political and military force.
Today, that same logic could repeat itself. The longer Israeli soldiers remain in Lebanese villages, the more opportunity Hezbollah has to portray itself as a national resistance rather than an armed instrument of Iran.
The destruction of homes, civilian casualties, the prohibition on residents returning, and statements by certain far-right Israeli politicians regarding the potential annexation of southern territories all feed into the group’s propaganda. What Hezbollah lost due to its own unpopular war, Israel is partially handing back through its occupation policy.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot easily alter course. Elections in Israel are scheduled for October 27, 2026. The Knesset was dissolved on July 17. For Netanyahu, any withdrawal without the overt disarmament of Hezbollah would be framed by rivals as a defeat. A victory by the opposition does not guarantee a swift troop withdrawal. Coalition negotiations in Israel can take weeks or months. No incoming prime minister will want to assume responsibility for pulling the military back to the border if Hezbollah retains its strike capabilities.
The Israeli presence risks becoming permanent. But a permanent occupation means continuous casualties, expenses, international criticism, and the radicalization of the local population.
A military victory is beginning to turn into a political trap.
Iran Is Prepared to Fight with Lebanon to the Last Lebanese
Following the destruction of a major portion of Hezbollah’s leadership, the organization’s reliance on Tehran has intensified. Iranian advisors are participating in the reconstruction of the command structure, the transfer of technology, and the formulation of strategy.
For Iran, Hezbollah remains its most valuable foreign military asset. Iraqi groups are capable of attacking American bases. The Houthis threaten shipping in the Red Sea. But it was precisely the Lebanese organization that created a direct threat to Israeli territory for decades.
Tehran has no interest in its voluntary disarmament. Losing the Lebanese missile front would mean the destruction of a vital element of Iran’s deterrence posture.
Yet the cost of preserving Hezbollah is not paid by Iran. It is paid by the residents of Lebanon: through destroyed homes, slain relatives, lost jobs, emigration, and a paralyzed economy.
Iran can afford to play the long game. It calculates that Israeli society will grow weary of losses, Western partners will pressure Jerusalem, and the Lebanese government will not dare risk an internal war.
If negotiations between Iran and the US lead to unfreezing assets or easing sanctions, a portion of those resources could once again be directed toward rebuilding Hezbollah, compensating families of the deceased, purchasing weaponry, and solidifying political loyalty.
The group does not need to immediately regain its pre-war capabilities. It only needs to survive the current cycle and refrain from surrendering its arms. The mere fact of maintaining an armed structure after Israeli strikes and US pressure will be declared a victory.
Four Scenarios for Lebanon
First Scenario: Gradual Disarmament Without a Major War
This is the most desirable yet least likely outcome. Israel gradually transfers sectors to the Lebanese army. Hezbollah withdraws its heavy weaponry while retaining its political party and a portion of its light armed structures. Nabih Berri acts as a mediator, allowing the process to be presented not as a Shiite surrender, but as a state compromise.
Implementing such a scenario would require security guarantees, funds for the reconstruction of Shiite areas, large-scale aid to the military, and Iran’s political consent. As of now, none of these conditions exist.
Second Scenario: Frozen Occupation
Israel maintains a buffer zone, periodically conducts strikes, and hands over select settlements to the Lebanese army. Beirut simulates disarmament by seizing abandoned supply depots and restricting the overt presence of militants. Hezbollah goes underground, retains weapons north of the controlled areas, and continues drone attacks.
This is the most realistic scenario for the coming months. It does not bring peace, but it allows all sides to avoid an immediate major war.
Third Scenario: Internal Explosion
Under external pressure, the government orders the military to conduct large-scale operations against Hezbollah. The group resists. Clashes begin in the south or in the suburbs of Beirut, subsequently spreading to other regions.
The army risks fracturing. Sunni, Christian, and Druze parties form their own armed structures. Iran intervenes through Hezbollah, Israel strikes, and Syria becomes a transit territory for weapons and fighters.
This is the worst-case scenario, yet its probability cannot be considered zero.
Fourth Scenario: Regional Deal
The US and Iran reach an agreement on a broader cessation of war. Lebanon becomes part of a package deal encompassing the Iranian nuclear program, sanctions, Israeli security, and the fate of pro-Iranian groups.
Tehran might agree to restrict Hezbollah’s heavy weaponry in exchange for financial and political concessions. However, Iran is unlikely to accept the complete disarmament of its primary proxy. Any formula will be built on concealing capabilities rather than definitively eliminating them.
The Lebanese State Must Win a Peace That Does Not Yet Exist
International partners demand that Beirut pursue reforms, combat corruption, restore the banking system, and disarm Hezbollah. These demands are logical individually, but together they form an almost unachievable agenda.
It is impossible to rebuild a state while an armed organization unilaterally makes decisions regarding war. Yet it is impossible to disarm that organization while the state remains impoverished, corrupt, institutionally weak, and incapable of protecting its own citizens.
One cannot demand that the Shiites renounce Hezbollah without offering them security, housing, healthcare, schools, and political representation. Nor can one allow a single community to hold the entire country hostage for the sake of weapons subservient to a foreign strategy.
Israel must also make a choice. Its security will not be guaranteed through the endless destruction of southern Lebanon. Every razed village may eliminate a depot or a tunnel, but it simultaneously breeds a new generation of people for whom Hezbollah once again becomes the sole force promising retribution.
The June 26 agreement opened a narrow corridor between two catastrophes: an indefinite occupation and civil war. But a diplomatic document cannot replace a political solution.
The primary question is not whether Hezbollah will surrender its rockets. The question is whether Lebanon can create a state to which its citizens will voluntarily agree to grant the sole right over arms, security, and war.
For now, no such state exists.
That is precisely why Hezbollah can lose a military campaign to Israel, lose its command, its allies, and thousands of fighters - and still retain what matters most. Not rockets. Not tunnels. Not Iranian money.
It retains the weakness of Lebanon.
And as long as this weakness remains the foundation of the political system, disarming Hezbollah will not be a technical operation, but an attempt to re-establish the state anew - an attempt that will either transform Lebanon or permanently destroy it.