Lebanon on the Edge: What Would Happen if Hezbollah Refused to Disarm

Lebanon is now at the edge of a full-scale war, and Hezbollah is still determined to refuse all forces against the disarmament of their forces, while the Lebanese government continues to push to put all weapons under state control, reviving a dispute that remained unresolved since the end of the Lebanese civil war.

المصدر: النهار

Lebanon on the Edge: What Would Happen if Hezbollah Refused to Disarm

A Hezbollah rocket launcher. (Annahar)

Jana Soufan

How did Hezbollah acquire its weapons in the first place? Before 1982, there was not a political party or a military group named “Hezbollah”, but during the Lebanese civil war, Hezbollah emerged to bring “security” to the country. As it promised to resist all Israeli forces and remove them from south Lebanon.

During the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1989, an agreement called Taif agreement was concluded by Lebanese political leaders to end conflict in Lebanon, this agreement called all militias to hand over their weapons to state control.

Hezbollah was forcing an exception as an excuse to perform resistance movements against Israel. Which they continued to possess weapons even after Israel withdrew its forces from the South in the year 2000.

In 2004 the UN adopted Resolution 1559, which called for complete disarmament for all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias, and also called for the Lebanese government’s armed forces to extend throughout the areas of Lebanon, as giving power to non-governmental militias prevented the government from having full sovereignty over Lebanese territories.

In 2006, a war between Israel and Hezbollah occurred once again, which called for reimplementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif agreement and Resolution 1559.

According to a report by the Un, Hezbollah continued with the possession of weapons outside state control, describing their possession of these weapons as a tool to fight against possible Israeli aggressions.

Why is this issue relevant now? After the 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the question remained who controls the weapons in Lebanon? Lebanon has then tried to strengthen its forces and place the weapons in their control; however, the Lebanese government was still going through several issues in Lebanon according to the Lebanese government.

As in 2025, the Lebanese government gained the strength where the Cabinet tasked the Lebanese army to scatter across all Lebanese territories to place all weapons under state control, where the Taif agreement and the UN Security Council agreement, was brought into the implementation plan.

The government later approved the army’s plan and proceeded with it to gradually end all armed forces of non-state groups including Hezbollah, all throughout Lebanon. The plan done by the Lebanese army was put into implementation, and the start of action developed to capture all weapons of Hezbollah in the government’s hands. After forcing them to hand over their weapons, Hezbollah still went against the law on March 2,2026 when they released 6 rockets from the Lebanese grounds not to fight for their country, but to take revenge from Israel for the assassination of Ali Khamenei on February 28, 2026, an Iranian leader.

The issue developed further on 2026 march, where the Lebanese government released a decision to force Hezbollah to hand all their weapons to the state, and also claimed Hezbollah to be considered a terrorist group in Lebanon in which they stated, "Obliging Hezbollah to hand over its weapons to the Lebanese state and restricting its work to the political field within constitutional and legal frameworks”. Despite the decision against Hezbollah, they still kept on performing military actions, which ultimately shows that Hezbollah did not in fact hand over their weapons to the Lebanese government.

What will happen if Hezbollah kept their weapons?

Hezbollah’s determination provided Israel with a pretext to perform several strikes on several areas in Lebanon including Beirut and Mount Lebanon areas, where Israel targeted many of Hezbollah leaders and underground infrastructures.As in recent actions Israel are still performing military strikes and invasions in South Lebanon, as stated by the Israeli military “The Road to Beirut and Beqaa is now open”. Leaving Lebanon on the end of the cliff waiting for the next action, but the question remains Is Hezbollah using the Lebanese grounds as a battlefield to serve Iran’s interest? A question that answers itself.