Israel and Lebanon have signed an agreement whose headline is “joint state action against Hezbollah”—and the terror group is furious. Over the weekend, clashes erupted between Lebanese army soldiers and Shiite Hezbollah supporters who took to the streets to protest the deal. This is where the battle began.
Just hours before details of the agreement were published last Friday, Hezbollah launched a massive show of force: a march for Ashura, the holiest day for Shiites. The procession started at Nasrallah’s grave and reached the road leading to Beirut’s airport. The location wasn’t random.
The airport road has served for years as a public relations focal point for Lebanon’s power struggles. “Thank you Iran” signs featuring pictures of Khamenei the father and Khamenei the son that were hung there after the Iran-U.S. deal were replaced yesterday with signs reading “Lebanon First”—on orders from Lebanon’s interior minister. Beirut’s Shiites didn’t connect with the message, and footage circulated online showing them burning the new signs.
In recent days it was clear that the signing of the Iran-U.S. deal gave Hezbollah’s leaders considerable confidence. Several of them boasted that Iran was guaranteeing them that Israel would be forced to withdraw from the territories it captured in southern Lebanon under American pressure. But Friday’s agreement changes the rules of the game.
The IDF will withdraw only after Hezbollah is disarmed, and the Lebanese state is the one taking exclusive responsibility for managing its affairs—without Iranian patronage. Hezbollah, as expected, is vehemently opposed. Lebanese parliament member Hassan Fadlallah of Hezbollah declared in an angry interview he gave to Al-Mayadeen after the signing: “They (Lebanon’s leaders) are living in an illusion, they are cowards. Their choices lead to defeat. They will not be allowed, they will not succeed, we will not permit them, and we will not accept that they pass these dictates, this. This surrender!”
Just last night, Hezbollah supporters went out in a violent motorcycle procession, again to Beirut airport road, but this time—Lebanon’s army didn’t turn a blind eye and responded with unusual force.
But not all Lebanese are angry: senior Sunni politician and billionaire Fouad Makhzoumi welcomed the agreement and tweeted: “Lebanon First—and that’s how it will stay, whether you like it or not.”
With this, the Sunni leadership joins the Christian bloc and gives backing to the government’s moves. The internal flare-up now threatens Lebanon, and the battle over the future of the Land of Cedars is far from over—but for the first time in years it appears the state is trying to take the reins.