The peace deal with Israel has proven quite controversial within Lebanon, with large scale protests in the wake of the announcement and fearing that it effectively does nothing about the ongoing Israeli invasion and occupation.
The growing concern among analysts though is that the deal’s obligations to Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah are actually designed to fail and fuel an internal conflict within the country, while allowing Israel to continue operating with effective impunity in the south.
The tensions were already apparent, with officials trying to blame Hezbollah for the protests, even though participation in the demonstrations went far beyond the group itself. This risks portraying Shi’ites in general as necessarily Hezbollah-linked. Now Israeli officials are suggesting that problem has extended to the Lebanese military.
Emergency personnel work at the site of an Israeli strike, that killed multiple people according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, in Deir Qanoun al-Nahr, Tyre district, southern Lebanon, May 20, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
Israel Ambassador to the US Yeichel Leiter is claiming that the Lebanese Army has begun “sidelining” Shi’ite members of the military as they prepare to confront Hezbollah. He went on to suggest that the Lebanese military has long been capable of confronting Hezbollah, but that because about 25-30% of the Army is Shi’ite, they were reluctant to do so.
Lebanon’s society is built around a multi-faith political system, with key positions reserved for Sunnis, Shi’ites and Christians within any given government. Israel’s present hostility toward the Shi’ites, which includes a policy of forcible population transfer of Lebanese Shi’ites from southern Lebanon and the destruction of Shi’ite villages, looms large in the peace deal, which has no requirements for Israel to stop attacks of Lebanon’s Shi’ite population, but aims to commit Lebanon to “confronting” Hezbollah.
Since Hezbollah is a Shi’ite faction, the underlying assumption is that confronting them would also be confronting Shi’ites in general, but historically that’s not the way Lebanon’s society is meant to be organized. Suddenly excluding Shi’ites from military service risks undermining Lebanon’s historical pluralism.
Israel, for its part, continues its attacks in southern Lebanon, reporting that they’d killed a Hezbollah member in an airstrike again today, as they emerged from a tunnel in the area. So far, as is often the case with the IDF, the evidence that the person was actually a Hezbollah operative seems to begin and end with them being perceived as exiting a tunnel in the area.
