Lebanon is a Middle Eastern country neighbouring Syria and Israel. Its president is Joseph Aoun, a former army chief; its prime minister is Nawaf Salam. Aoun is serious about trying to disarm Hizbullah, an Iran-backed militia that has ridden roughshod over the state for decades. He also wants to disarm the Palestinian militias in Lebanon's refugee camps. Walid Jumblatt is the country's Druze political leader. The defence minister is Elias Bou Saab, the highest-ranking Orthodox official in the government.
The airport motorway was long named Hafez al-Assad avenue, after the late Syrian dictator—an odd choice, since the Assad regime had been an unwelcome occupier. On August 5th 2025 the Lebanese cabinet announced it would rename the street after Ziad Rahbani, a beloved artist who died a week earlier. The other road leading to the airport remains named after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the Iranian revolution.
Lebanon lived through a three-decade Syrian occupation that ended in 2005. It will need at least $7bn to rebuild after its 2024 war with Israel. Its economy was already reeling from a financial crisis that began in 2019: GDP has fallen by almost a third, the currency has lost 98% of its value, and banks are insolvent. The estimated losses in the financial system total $80bn. For decades the economy resembled a state-run Ponzi scheme: the central bank borrowed dollars from private lenders and used them to maintain a currency peg and finance fiscal and trade deficits. There is serious talk of peace with Israel: not full normalisation, but at least an end to decades of conflict.
Hizbullah's grip on the state has never looked weaker. Many of its leaders are dead. Its armoury is depleted. It has lost control of Beirut airport. Its land corridor to Iran via Syria and Iraq has been cut off. Its supporters are angry at its failure to rebuild what Israel destroyed. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now exercises direct authority over the group; whatever autonomy Hizbullah once enjoyed died with Hassan Nasrallah. Resentment is mounting even among Shias, who constitute Hizbullah's base. Iran is still paying fighters' salaries but is no longer willing to underwrite reconstruction.
America has put forward a four-phase plan to disarm Hizbullah. The group would hand over its weapons by the end of 2025. Israel would withdraw from its five positions in southern Lebanon and the still-frequent Israeli air strikes would cease. Lebanon and Israel would have to demarcate their border at last. Gulf donors say reconstruction money is conditional on a credible disarmament plan.
Tom Barrack, the American ambassador to Turkey and Donald Trump's envoy to the Levant, gave the Lebanese government a deadline: America wants Hizbullah to hand over its weapons by November 2025, a year after the ceasefire that ended the war. Until Hizbullah disarms, no one will stump up billions for post-war reconstruction.
In August 2025 the government debated the American plan. Hizbullah's representatives and allies stormed out of a cabinet meeting; the government approved the plan's objectives regardless. Within days, Iran dispatched a senior envoy to Beirut. Six Lebanese soldiers were killed attempting to secure a Hizbullah weapons cache near the Israeli border when an arms depot exploded—the army's deadliest day since the country was drawn into the regional war on October 8th 2023.
The army has sent more than half of a planned deployment of 10,000 soldiers south of the Litani river, a region bordering Israel that has long been Hizbullah's playground. General Nicolas Tabet oversees the army's operations in the southern region. General Rodolph Haykal, the army chief, said in April 2025 that his men had carried out more than 5,000 operations to confiscate weapons. By late 2025 the army had grabbed more than 500 rocket launchers and seized almost 200 tunnels, blowing up so many arms caches that it ran out of explosives. Even Israeli army officers say they are unexpectedly pleased with the Lebanese army's progress. But these are easy wins: Hizbullah has made a tactical retreat from the south, where Israel continues to carry out near-daily air strikes and to occupy five points near the border.
Some Shias fear that without Hizbullah's protection, they may face violence or be forced from their homes. The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria to Sunni rebels has unsettled them; they look at the massacres of Alawites in Syria and tremble. But pressure from Shia constituents is mounting. Four decades of entrenched power—banks, financial institutions, the constitution—cannot be dismantled overnight. Yet Hizbullah looks increasingly isolated. It has done little to defend its weapons.
It will be harder to make progress north of the Litani, as America hopes to see by year's end. Hizbullah will be more reluctant to hand over its weapons there. Thousands of its fighters would need to be demobilised. The government is trying to convince Hizbullah to relent in exchange for help rebuilding Shia-majority areas pummelled by Israel, but the group is stubborn. Tarek Mitri, the deputy prime minister, says disarmament "cannot [be done] by force. It needs political discussions with Hizbullah, and Hizbullah is a very tough nut to crack." Joseph Aoun frets that being too tough on Hizbullah will lead to sectarian violence. Delay risks giving the militia a chance to regroup and may alienate Lebanon's allies in America and the Gulf; the latter are already getting frustrated.
Iran may now be less able or willing to send money and weapons to Hizbullah, because it needs to bolster its own defences. Some within Hizbullah want to stall for time, hoping events will turn in their favour. Even disarmed, Hizbullah would retain a say in Lebanese politics as one of the main representatives of the Shias.
Hizbullah's allies were quick to exploit the sectarian violence in Syria's Suwayda in July 2025: if the group relinquishes its weapons, they argue, no one will be able to protect Lebanon from militias next door.
Since Israel and America began the third Gulf war against Iran, Hizbullah has again been attacking Israel. In response, Israel launched a devastating series of air strikes that since March 2nd have killed more than 950 people, among them over a hundred children. Israeli evacuation orders cover more than 14% of Lebanon's territory. More than a million Lebanese—a fifth of the population—have been displaced, many for the second or third time in barely two years. The mass displacement, overwhelmingly of Shias from the south, is reopening sectarian fault-lines: in some Christian areas local authorities are telling Shias to stay away, and landlords refuse to rent to them.
On March 16th Israel Katz, Israel's defence minister, announced a "ground manoeuvre" against Hizbullah. On March 18th the IDF destroyed bridges over the Litani river, suggesting preparations for a longer occupation. So far, though, the IDF is operating only a few miles beyond the border. On March 24th Katz said Israeli forces would "control the remaining bridges and the security zone up to the Litani"—which would mean seizing nearly a tenth of Lebanon. Israel has severed the south from the rest of the country by striking eight bridges over the river. Israel says civilians will not be allowed back to their homes until the Lebanese army acts forcefully against Hizbullah. Israel aims to smash Hizbullah; instead, it risks reviving it. In contrast to 2024, the scale of this assault makes it look like an attack on Lebanon itself. Israel's invasion in 1982 led to an 18-year occupation and the emergence of Hizbullah; fighting a new wave of occupiers would help the group recover its grip.
On March 2nd 2026 Nawaf Salam declared "all Hizbullah's security and military activities" to be illegal. The government has arrested dozens of members for carrying weapons. The support for the ban by Nabih Berri, parliament's speaker and himself a Shia, shows how far Lebanon's politics has shifted. The foreign minister expelled the Iranian ambassador for meddling in Lebanon's internal affairs; in response, Iran launched a long-range missile towards Beirut. The government has also offered direct talks with Israel—previously unthinkable, since contact with Israel or Israelis is still a crime in Lebanon. Sami Gemayel, head of Kataeb, a Christian party, says "no one will allow Hizbullah to get out of this alive."
Christian neighbourhoods are increasingly turning away displaced Shias, fearing that by welcoming them they would invite Israeli attacks. The army has done little to act on the government's ban on Hizbullah's weapons, insisting the state cannot move further without a ceasefire.
The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, signed in November 2024, has been under increasing strain. The Lebanese government says Israeli strikes carried out since the ceasefire have killed 331 people. On November 23rd 2025 Israel killed Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hizbullah's military chief appointed at the end of November 2024, in an air strike in southern Beirut, along with at least four others. It was only the second such strike in the capital since the ceasefire. His predecessor, Ibrahim Aqil, was killed by an Israeli strike less than two months after taking the job. Israeli and American officials complain that Hizbullah has successfully pressed the Lebanese army to desist from confiscating its weapons; America cancelled meetings scheduled at the Pentagon for Lebanon's army chief. Lebanon complains that Israel's air strikes and continued occupation of five outposts within Lebanese territory breach the ceasefire.
At least 25,000 Alawites have fled Syria to Lebanon since the fall of the Assad regime, including thousands of former officers and soldiers. A cluster of NGOs, allegedly linked to former Assad-era militia commanders, has been distributing small stipends to destitute Syrian refugees in Akkar, a district in northern Lebanon.
In April 2025 parliament passed a law easing bank-secrecy rules. Three months later it approved a plan to restructure local banks. The next step is the "gap law", which would apportion the $80bn of losses—the crucial piece of the reform package, without which there can be no bank restructuring or IMF bailout. Lawmakers with ties to lenders have repeatedly blocked reform attempts.
On December 3rd 2025 Joseph Aoun sent Simon Karam, a former ambassador to America, to negotiate with an Israeli envoy—the first direct talks in decades between the two countries. Nawaf Salam says the talks could lead to a peace agreement and eventually to normal relations with Israel.
Barrack has tried to strike a more respectful tone than his predecessor, Morgan Ortagus, who once suggested that Lebanon's leading Druze politician was on crack. But he has delivered less on substance. On frequent visits he has refused to offer guarantees for when Israel might cease its air strikes or withdraw from the five border points it continues to occupy. Nor has he made any commitment of financial aid, beyond a vague promise that Saudi Arabia and Qatar will help rebuild. "We're not in that business any more. We're not in nation-building," he says.
When America, Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire around April 8th 2026, Netanyahu stressed that Lebanon was not included. On the afternoon of the ceasefire, the Israeli air force attacked around 100 targets in Lebanon; more than 1,000 people were killed and injured, hospitals were overwhelmed and ran short of blood. Iran warned it would resume attacks on Israel if the strikes on Hizbullah continued. Iran and Pakistan, which had mediated the ceasefire, insisted Lebanon was included; Israel disagreed.
genealogy, n.: An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.