Men in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut, in front of a mural depicting Hassan Nasrallah and other Hezbollah members.Image: keystone
The agreement between Beirut and Jerusalem presents the state army with an impossible task.
June 30, 2026, 6:57 p.mJune 30, 2026, 6:57 p.m
Michael Wrase, Limassol / ch media
The Lebanese MP Hassan Fadlallah celebrated the Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the USA signed at the Bürgenstock as a “great victory for the Islamic Republic”. Since the agreement stipulates the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, the parliamentarian close to Hezbollah argued, direct negotiations between Beirut and Jerusalem are unnecessary.
In fact, the Bürgenstock agreement only obliges the USA and Iran to end the fighting “on all fronts, including in Lebanon” – without Israel or Hezbollah, the actual warring parties on site, being a party to it or a specific withdrawal of the Israeli army being stipulated.
In order to achieve a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from the areas occupied in southern Lebanon, Lebanese and Israeli government representatives signed an independent document in Washington last Friday that is intended – at least in theory – to fill this gap. The agreement envisages a “sequenced process” in which the regular Lebanese army is to restore “effective sovereign authority over the entire territory of Lebanon”.
This, the contract makes clear, is only possible once a “verified disarmament of non-state armed groups” has been achieved: This refers to Hezbollah, which is to be disarmed by the Beirut state army in the coming months. If this does not succeed, “we will stay in Lebanon,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear. For him, the agreement with Beirut is also a success because it could deprive Iran of the influence over Lebanon that Tehran had just gained through the Bürgenstock paper.
Clear warnings of a larger conflict
The Lebanese Republic is the victim of this power struggle. The agreement between Beirut and Jerusalem, argues the American news portal Axios, is “a diplomatic breakthrough”. However, it remains unclear how much of this can ever be implemented.
A Hezbollah supporter with dirt from Karbala on his face takes part in Shiite Ashura celebrations in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.Image: www.imago-images.de
The British Parliamentary Research Office (House of Commons Library) had already warned in the spring that the implementation of an order to disarm Hezbollah could lead to civil war in the Land of the Cedars. An analysis by the Washington Institute also believes that “the potential for a deadly sectarian conflict is very real.”
The Lebanese army, which is intended to disarm Hezbollah, is officially considered the anchor of national unity. In fact, like all state institutions, it suffers greatly from the country’s sectarian divides. The top command is divided between the religious communities according to a fixed denominational key, which creates conflicts of loyalty whenever the army has to intervene in armed or political conflicts.
Are the Shiites defying the order?
It could then happen that the Shiites, who according to estimates make up a significant portion of the approximately 60,000 active soldiers, refuse the order or even defect to Hezbollah, which is a purely Shiite organization. There are numerous families in Lebanon in which one son belongs to Hezbollah and another to the Lebanese army. It is highly questionable that they would shoot at each other in an emergency.
Observers in Beirut emphasize that it is more likely that they will form an alliance. In such a case, there would probably be a split in the Lebanese army into Shiite and Christian-Maronite brigades and, in the worst case, a new civil war.
Think tanks like Brookings warn against using the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah. The “Arab Center” in Washington DC believes that a restoration of state authority to carry weapons cannot be achieved through coercion, but only through political consensus and improved state capacities. (schweiztoday.ch)