Hezbollah, between the promise of disarmament and official refusal

As calls for Hezbollah's disarmament in Lebanon grow, a senior official of the group told Reuters that they are willing to engage in dialogue with the Lebanese president about their arsenal, as long as Israel withdraws from the south of the country and ceases its attacks. 

The prospect of talks aimed at disarming Hezbollah, unimaginable when it was at the height of its power just two years ago, underlines the dramatic changes in the balance of power in the Middle East since Israel struck the Iranian-backed group in a devastating conflict triggered by the Gaza war. 

US-backed President Joseph Aoun, who promised when he took office in January to establish a state monopoly on arms control, intends to soon start talks with Hezbollah about its arsenal, Lebanese political sources said. 

Hezbollah emerged severely weakened from the 2024 conflict with Israel, when its top leaders and thousands of fighters were killed and much of its rocket arsenal was destroyed. The blow was compounded when its ally Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power in Syria, thus disrupting its supply lines from Iran. 

In a significant sign of the changing times in Lebanon, billboards bearing the image of the Lebanese flag and a statement reading in Arabic ‘Lebanon: a new era’, have replaced Hezbollah propaganda posters on the road leading to Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport. 

A senior Hezbollah official told Reuters that the group was willing to discuss its weapons in the context of a national defence strategy, but that this depended on Israel withdrawing its troops from five hills in southern Lebanon. 

‘Hezbollah is willing to discuss the issue of its weapons if Israel withdraws from the five points and stops its aggression against the Lebanese,’ the senior official told Reuters. 

Following the publication of this news, the Hezbollah press office issued a statement in which it affirmed that the accusations published in ‘some media’ and attributed to Hezbollah officials ‘are completely false’. The statement did not specify which ones were false. 

Israel, which sent ground troops to southern Lebanon during the war, has largely withdrawn, but in February decided not to abandon the five positions in the hills. It affirmed its intention to eventually hand them over to Lebanese troops once it was sure that the security situation allowed it.  

Despite a ceasefire since November, Israeli air strikes have kept up the pressure on the group while Washington has demanded that Hezbollah disarms and prepares for nuclear talks with Hezbollah's Iranian supporters. 

Hezbollah has been the most powerful of the paramilitary groups that Iran has supported in the region. Reuters reported on Monday that several Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq are prepared to disarm for the first time to avoid the threat of an escalating conflict with the Trump administration in the United States. 

Hezbollah has long rejected calls from its critics in Lebanon for it to disarm, describing its weapons as vital to defend the country from Israel. Deep differences over its arsenal led to a brief civil war in 2008. 

Critics of the group say it has unilaterally dragged Lebanon into conflicts and that the presence of its large arsenal outside government control has undermined the state. 

A US-brokered ceasefire with Israel requires the Lebanese army to dismantle all unauthorised military installations and confiscate all weapons, starting with areas south of the Litani River, which flows into the Mediterranean some 20 kilometres north of the Israeli border. 

Sources familiar with Hezbollah's thinking said they were considering handing over their most powerful weapons north of the Litani, including drones and anti-tank missiles, to the army. 

Aoun has said that Hezbollah's weaponry should be addressed through dialogue because any attempt to disarm the group by force would provoke conflict, the sources said. 

Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, head of Lebanon's Maronite church, said last week that it was time for all weapons to be in the hands of the state, but this will require time and diplomacy because ‘Lebanon cannot endure a new war’. 

Channels of communication are being opened with the relevant stakeholders to ‘begin studying the transfer of weapons’ to state control, after the army and security services extended state authority throughout Lebanon, a Lebanese official said, saying that this was a measure to implement Aoun's policy. 

The issue was also being discussed with the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, an important ally of Hezbollah, who plays a key role in bridging differences, he said. 

US envoy Morgan Ortagus, who visited Beirut over the weekend, repeated Washington's position that Hezbollah and other armed groups should be disarmed as soon as possible and the Lebanese army is expected to do the job. 

‘It is clear that Hezbollah must be disarmed and it is clear that Israel is not going to accept terrorists shooting at them, inside their country, and that is a position we understand,’ Ortagus said in an interview on 6 April with Lebanese television LBCI. 

Several Lebanese government ministers want a disarmament timetable, according to Kamal Shehadi, a minister affiliated with the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Forces party. Shehadi said the disarmament should not last more than six months, citing the disarming of militias after the civil war as a precedent. 

A timetable, which would presumably impose deadlines on the process, is, he said, the ‘only way to protect our fellow citizens from the recurrent attacks that are costing lives, costing the economy and causing destruction’. 

He said he and other ministers hoped the full cabinet would back the idea and task the defence minister with preparing the schedule. ‘We will continue to ask for it,’ he said. 

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, in a speech on 29 March, said his group no longer had an armed presence south of the Litani River and that it had remained faithful to the ceasefire agreement, while Israel violated it on a daily basis. Israel has accused Hezbollah of maintaining military infrastructure in the south. 

Hezbollah has entrusted the Lebanese state with the responsibility of ensuring that Israel withdraws and ceases its attacks. Qassem said there was still time for diplomatic solutions. However, he warned that the ‘resistance is present and ready’ and indicated that he could resort to ‘other options’ if Israel does not comply with the agreement.