DUBAI: Lebanon’s government recently instructed the army to prepare a plan to disarm all armed factions and restore the state’s monopoly on weapons. It was widely interpreted as a move to disarm Hezbollah.
However, despite international calls for Hezbollah to surrender what remains of its heavy arsenal, the move has triggered a political tit-for-tat that now threatens to plunge the country into a new civil war.
With Israeli airstrikes ongoing in the south and the US heaping on the pressure, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have attempted to build public consensus around a weakened Hezbollah laying down its arms.
According to a recent Gallup poll, which surveyed a random sample of 1,010 people from across the country, excluding Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut and other cities like Baalbek, the Lebanese public is largely in favor of the moves.
This handout photo released by the Lebanese Presidency press office on August 5, 2025, shows Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun (C) chairing a cabinet session to discuss the issue of disarming Hezbollah at the presidential palace of Baabda east of Beirut. (AFP)
