Israel: a new hegemon in Lebanon?

One year on, however, matters seem far more complex. While the new Lebanese leadership has made significant progress on the path of financial, economic and social reforms, it is on the security and political front – the central issue – that the problem lies. The core question revolves around the disarmament of Hezbollah, demanded by Israel. Although the ceasefire concluded on 27 November 2024 under US mediation (and based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701) put an end to the fighting and set out the principle of Hezbollah’s disarmament, thereby de facto acknowledging its weakening, it did not clearly and unequivocally specify the exact scope of this disarmament, nor its geographical extent. Israel thus maintains that disarmament must take place throughout Lebanon, while Hezbollah argues that it should occur only within a narrow border strip, 5 to 7 kilometres wide, south of the Litani River along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

While some sources claim that Hezbollah has been largely neutralised militarily – having allegedly lost between 2,000 and 4,000 fighters, including the elite of its leaders and military cadres, and having seen nearly 90% of its so-called “strategic” weapons (missiles and drones with sufficient range to strike the heart of Israel) destroyed – this is nonetheless insufficient from Tel Aviv’s perspective, which seeks total disarmament. This prospect is currently rejected both by the Shiite party and by its Iranian patron, which continues to bet on the Hezbollah card. As a result, Israel has continued to strike Hezbollah daily across Lebanon since the 27 November 2024 ceasefire (around 700 strikes in total), while the Shiite party has reportedly lost more than 200 additional members, carefully refraining from retaliation. This posture clearly illustrates the imbalance in the balance of power.

In this context, Lebanon faces three possible scenarios. The first, that of de-escalation – which might be termed the “Irish” scenario – would rest on a political agreement (modelled on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland), through which Hezbollah members would gradually hand over their weapons, while the Lebanese army, supported by international forces, notably European with US backing, could play the role of an “honest broker” in receiving these arms. Although this scenario, which appears to be favoured by the Lebanese authorities, would require time (voluntary disarmament took seven years in Northern Ireland), it would also demand long-term engagement by the United States and its European allies to reassure the various local actors and provide massive support to the Lebanese army (a summit is scheduled for early 2026 in Paris to quantify this support). It would also likely be conditional on the stabilisation of neighbouring Syria, with which the border is extremely porous and whose new regime under President Ahmad al-Chareh is still struggling to assert itself. Finally, it would depend on a resolution of the dispute with Iran, so that Tehran would cease pushing Hezbollah to harden its positions.

The second scenario would be the establishment in Lebanon of a model comparable to that of the West Bank, where the forces of the Palestinian Authority are, with difficulty, compelled to cooperate with Israel to avoid economic, political or even military reprisals. If the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons is not resolved, Israel could opt in Lebanon for a scenario that maximises its security. This would involve forcing both the Lebanese authorities and the Lebanese army to cooperate with the Hebrew state, under threat, failing which Israel would strike not only Hezbollah but also all public infrastructure and Lebanese state administrations, which are vulnerable to the Israeli army (such threats having been issued more than once recently). The early signs of this “West Bank” scenario emerged during a recent episode in Yanouh in southern Lebanon, where Israel forced Hezbollah to accept a series of searches and, above all, compelled the Lebanese army itself to carry out these searches, conveying messages through the ceasefire supervision committee (known as the “mechanism”) to identify potential weapons caches, under threat of Israeli bombardment in the event of refusal. This new situation could ultimately require the Lebanese army to partially revise its operational doctrine, as it has until now regarded Israel as an external threat and an enemy with whom cooperation is inconceivable.

This scenario would not entail the surrender of weapons, but rather the perpetuation of a climate of status quo, or “controlled instability”, in which the Israeli army would confirm its new dominance by imposing its will on the forces present in Lebanon – Hezbollah, other militias and armed groups, as well as the Lebanese army itself – while consolidating the creation of a buffer zone in southern Lebanon along its border, emptied, as it is today, of its inhabitants, and potentially patrolled by international forces (which would succeed UNIFIL, whose mandate expires at the end of 2026). This scenario would moreover not require massive and sustained US engagement in Lebanon, nor a comprehensive settlement with Iran, but merely the maintenance of a minimum regional balance, which the US military posture in the region could ensure.

Finally, the last scenario, comparable to that of Gaza, would involve a new explosion of violence, prompting the Hebrew state to strike its adversaries forcefully by destroying large swathes of Lebanon and attacking Iran, in order to severely weaken its opponents and impose radical political changes in the Near East (which could, ultimately, threaten the regime in Tehran itself). This scenario could, however, require US engagement in Iran itself, to ensure that instability would not spread within the country and across the rest of the region, notably Iraq and the Gulf states, in the event of a regime tipping point.

These three scenarios share a common thread: the level of US engagement. If Washington is unwilling to embark massively on “nation-building” enterprises and on supporting local authorities, in Lebanon or elsewhere (as it once did in Iraq), it will favour security-based solutions that preserve the status quo, by cooperating with existing regional powers – which would de facto endorse Israel, particularly on the Lebanese front, as a new hegemon.

One unknown factor, however, is Turkey, Washington’s other ally, which maintains a strong rivalry with Tel Aviv on the Syrian theatre. This cannot but influence neighbouring Lebanon, which hosts a large proportion of Syrian displaced persons, while the country’s predominantly Sunni north, home to a Turcophone community, partly moves to the rhythm of Ankara.