The Lebanese government’s intention is to fully disarm Hezbollah in the area north of the Litani River within the next four months. That’s not sitting well with Hezbollah, who insists they will not compromise on the issue.
Hezbollah cooperated with the disarmament south of the Litani, which was completed last month. Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlullah said he believes the attempt to focus on disarming north of the river is a misdirection by the government, which instead should be focused on stopping Israeli aggression.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said he viewed the disarmament timeline as “pro-Israel” in nature and serves the goal of supporting ongoing Israeli aggression on Lebanese territory. Since the ceasefire went into effect in November 2024, Hezbollah has not launched a single attack on Israeli territory, while Israel has launched well over 1,000 attacks on Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem | Image is CC 2.0 from Wikimedia
Progress amid secret talks between Israel and Lebanon are being reported on the sidelines of this ongoing effort to disarm Hezbollah, with reports that Israel might agree to conceivably withdraw from “one or two” of the various military outposts they illegally established on Lebanese soil in return for Lebanon places the entirety of Hezbollah’s arsenal into storage.
The narrative is that the US would “ensure” the Israeli withdrawal from such sites if Lebanon plays ball on disarmament. Though that seems enticing on the surface, the US was already meant to be the guarantors of the 2024 ceasefire, which called for Israel to withdraw entirely from Lebanon by January 2025, and when Israel announced they weren’t going to do so, the US shrugged off its guarantees to the Lebanese state and praised Israel for their “commitments” to peace. This new guarantee, then, doesn’t mean much, if anything.
Israel argues that Hezbollah having any weapons at all amounts to a direct threat, and has claimed at various times that their presence is itself a violation of the ceasefire, though all indications are that the terms actually only required their disarmament south of the Litani River.
Israeli Brig. Gen. Yuval Gaz says Israel’s intention is to stay on the offensive against Hezbollah irrespective of what happens, and the IDF is making plans to go “deep” into Lebanese territory to accomplish this. This appears to be what Hezbollah expects as well, which is why they argue that the threat of Israeli attacks makes disarmament impractical.
