At the moment Hamas launched the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, Qassam Brigades Commander Mohammed Deif called on “the Palestinian youth in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and inside Israel to rise up... Whoever has a rifle should bring it out; its time has come.” Deif also urged the Arab and Islamic nations to act, and called upon “the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria... to join forces with the resistance in Palestine.”
With Hamas and its allies breaching the border and fighting beginning inside the settlements on the morning of Saturday, October 7, 2023, it seemed that the Iranian regime had inaugurated a new phase of its plan to dominate the region, relying on the military proxies it had fostered across our countries. On the one hand, the mission was to protect the “Islamic Revolution,” and on the other, to expand its influence and its vision of a “Greater Iran.” Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Esmail Qaani arrived in Hezbollah’s stronghold on the night of October 7-8, 2023. Hours later, three Israeli positions in the Shebaa Farms were targeted, initiating the “harassment operations,” that is, Lebanon’s entanglement in the crime of the war to “support” Gaza.
But Hassan Nasrallah did not make an appearance until November 3, 2023, following a week of propaganda building up to it. He declared that the battle was “Palestinian:” “Hamas planned and executed it without prior knowledge from the party (...).” The speech seemed to echo what Nasrallah himself had declared at the height of the July 2006 war: “Had I known...” All of this can only lead to one conclusion: the proxy forces Iran created, and to which it funneled billions to transform them into parallel entities, especially in Lebanon, are inseparable from Iran’s military and decision-making apparatus in Tehran.
This was reaffirmed when rockets were launched from Lebanon on March 2, 2026, marking the beginning of the catastrophe of the second “support war,” this time in support of Iran itself. Because it is an Iranian war, local incapacity to extricate Lebanon from this was inevitable.
There is no dispute that the Israeli enemy has ambitions in Lebanon: its land and water. With the shift in Israeli strategy following the trauma of “the Flood,” it has sought “forward defense” of its borders, settlement proposals have once again advanced under the scheme of a buffer zone behind the ever-expanding “yellow line.” Iran dragged Lebanon into a war that was not its own, entrusting command of the “Lebanese corps” within the Quds Force directly to the Revolutionary Guard Corps after the Israeli enemy had eliminated the “Jihad Council,” killed field commanders, and neutralized elite forces in the “pager attack.” Homes and territory that “no one had clung to” were exposed to destruction, resulting in horrifying losses, especially in Jabal Amel: annihilation, mass displacement, and the destruction of architecture, memory, past, and present alike, leaving Lebanon prey to the Israeli enemy.
Necessity imposed itself in the effort to protect lives and what remained of the built environment, leading to direct negotiations, arduous talks fraught with danger. This trajectory would not be altered by the inclusion of Lebanon in the ceasefire announced in the American-Iranian “framework of understanding,” important though it may be. Beirut’s priorities include, in addition to a ceasefire, establishing a timetable for withdrawal and the recovery of all occupied land, as well as the unconditional right of return.
Here lie the challenges posed by an Israeli negotiator like Yechiel Leiter, an ideological Zionist who supports settlement expansion. Before him stands the catastrophe of “the Flood” and its implications, leading him to link the prevention of future attacks with direct Israeli field control and the mechanisms of surveillance and buffer zones this would require. The Israeli enemy will certainly insist on retaining the right to intervene- that is, to violate Lebanese sovereignty at will. This right had already been embedded in the “framework of understanding” under the pretext of preventing Hezbollah from rearming.
Accordingly, Lebanon appears to be facing a challenge that requires liberation from both Israel and Iran simultaneously, without ignoring the costs this will impose on Lebanon- a looted, wounded country living under the weight of a major defeat and is called upon to bear its consequences. Israel is devouring land and expanding its occupation, and Lebanon cannot regain stability so long as Israeli arms remain in Hezbollah’s hands. Iran, meanwhile, has established a powerful parallel statelet and sought to entrench the concept of permanent “resistance,” or more accurately, permanent “contracting.” In doing so, it prevented the emergence of a capable and just state, mortgaged both land and people, and turned southerners into sandbags defending its interests and criminal objectives.
On March 2, the Lebanese government issued a decision banning Hezbollah’s military and security activity. This major decision was based on the authorities’ recognition that Hezbollah, as a military organization, is part of the “Islamic Republic,” making its very existence an assault on the Lebanese state. Here, even broader and more profound challenges emerge, because what must be confronted and dismantled is not merely the weapons themselves, but also a state deeply penetrated by serious obstacles undermining its machinery- obstacles that have hindered the implementation of government decisions and demonstrated Hezbollah’s continued influence within state institutions.
At the present moment, one must take a moment and pause before the implications of the American sanctions that targeted, among others, two active senior officers. This is unprecedented in Lebanon. Its significance lies in the security and political signals it carries, all converging on the need to remove obstacles preventing the acceptable implementation of cabinet decisions. These sanctions, and the individuals they targeted, must be front of mind, because Lebanon cannot afford the luxury of waiting in the face of an American alarm bell calling for the liberation of the mechanisms through which cabinet decisions are executed, which could grant the Lebanese negotiator greater room for maneuver and credibility.
