Disarming Hezbollah Is Finally in Lebanon’s Reach

On Saturday, August 9, the Lebanese army announced that six soldiers from the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) were killed in southern Lebanon while dismantling the Hezbollah weapons depot in the tire area.

The Lebanese army said that the investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident. Details are unknown, but the root of the problem is clear: Hezbollah illegal arsenal, which some reports estimate that they still include tens of thousands of missiles in southern Lebanon.

On Saturday, August 9, the Lebanese army announced that six soldiers from the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) were killed in southern Lebanon while dismantling the Hezbollah weapons depot in the tire area.

The Lebanese army said that the investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident. Details are unknown, but the root of the problem is clear: Hezbollah illegal arsenal, which some reports estimate that they still include tens of thousands of missiles in southern Lebanon.

The incident came alongside a decision of the Lebanese government to start the disarmament of the Iranian paramilitary organization backed by Iran, a step backed by the US government.

LAF works in partnership with the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations temporary force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to dismantle the paramilitary infrastructure in Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, according to the ceasefire with Israel in late last year.

However, despite the signing of an agreement that would impose the removal of its weapon, and the group also agreed to do it for many years under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, signed in 2006, Hezbollah refuses to cooperate, claiming that this step prefers Israeli interests.

Hezbollah repeated the pattern of 2006. It uses the Lebanese soil to carry out attacks on the state of Israel, which led to a war with the Israeli defense forces (IDF) that begins to lose. He signs an agreement that recognizes that he has been defeated and agreed to hand over his arms, then as soon as international attention decreases, he refuses to disarm and then threatens violence against any part of the Lebanese state that is trying to rely on it.

The destruction caused by Israel was the destruction of Lebanon as a result of these fires severe and destructive. It cannot be blamed only on Israel, as a fight, extremist, and impatient as its response. The ordinary Lebanese pay the cost of rebuilding their country again, after avoiding the destruction planted by an Iranian agent.

Late last year, she wrote that Hezbollah was trying again to depict its defeat as a victory, and that – after he lost a lot of his rank and file, its higher military and political leadership, and the land bridge from Iran to Lebanon via Iraq and Syria – the Lebanese government must move to Hezbollah. Although the government is weak like the government, it is the only force that can take Hezbollah knife away from the shaving of the public.

Since then, matters have moved in the right direction, following the election of Joseph Aoun as president and former president of the International Court of Justice, Nawaf Salam as Prime Minister. Both men made disarmament from Hezbollah central on the policy platform. The tragic death of the Lebanese forces that carry out these orders is additional evidence that this Lebanese government is serious about disarmament.

Iran immediately moved to the condemnation of politics, with Ali, the largest Village, an adviser to the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khawni, describing the disarmament of Hezbollah “a dream that will not be fulfilled.”

Although the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned these observations as “flagrant and unacceptable intervention” from Tehran, the newly appointed National Security head, Ali Larijani, was welcomed in Beirut on August 13 to hold talks with the Lebanese government, including the Aoun, who was re -formulated in Beirut situation that the Lebanese government is overlapping.

The Aoun administration has proven that it has the political will to follow up its policy of the Lebanese state, which enjoys “monopoly of weapons” within the borders of Lebanon, but the way to achieve this will be long, difficult and perhaps painful for Lebanon. Hezbollah will not abandon its strength, easily supported by violence.

Salam said frankly: “The disarmament of Hezbollah is the goal, not the starting point.”

With the Lebanese government moving to the disarmament of Hezbollah, Hezbollah increased the political pressure on Beirut. The Hezbollah Center recently conducted a policy research and documents that it claims to show a majority of Lebanese who oppose the disarmament of Hezbollah (58 percent) without a coherent national defense strategy.

However, this poll means that the Lebanese are ready to support disarmament as long as national security services are placed in the country first. Before October 7, 2023, Hezbollah was widely considered the most unarmed actor and a well -trained path in the world. Its military power has exceeded many regional countries, and through its sponsor, Iran and its ally in Damascus, Hezbollah has become a dominant force in the Levant.

Despite all this, even at the height of Hezbollah’s power, it was unable to prevent Israel from the military campaign that it conducted on Lebanese soil, both on the ground. The assassination of its leader cannot be prevented, and he was unable to prevent the occupation of Lebanese territory by the Israeli Defense Army, and he was unable to prevent the call bombings and the wireless population that left thousands of its fighters in the rank and files, and others fell into the explosions, which suffer from injuries that changed life.

Hezbollah was only a catastrophe for the Lebanese people. Hezbollah’s storage of explosive materials has already led to the worst disaster in Lebanon, and no single person has yet been detained at the expense of 218 people who were killed in the explosion. Lebanon has suffered enough for Hezbollah’s aspirations. It is enough.

The Lebanese government must be under any delusions regarding the dangerous path it is mistaken now. Hezbollah has already assassinated former Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri, and is likely to hit the state again.

But the current situation cannot be carried. Israel or Iran is going to anywhere, and the Lebanese government will have to find a way to rule as an independent national state and sovereignty alongside both, or risk its complete destruction as a permanent ground in reality for a war between Iran and Israel.

The Lebanese people deserve a better future than this. The international community must provide the Lebanese government and LAF all the support they need to dismantle Hezbollah once and forever. The failure to do this will inevitably lead to more bloodshed.