March 18, 2025
By Nasser Kandil
• The announcement of a ceasefire on Lebanon’s northeastern border between the Lebanese and Syrian armies underscored the importance of the Lebanese state assuming responsibility for countering any cross-border aggression. The Lebanese army’s role in securing the northeastern border effectively thwarted an attempt to open a secondary front between armed Syrian factions and Hezbollah, an attritional conflict that would have been difficult to contain had Hezbollah chosen to engage while the Lebanese army stood aside.
• It is clear that Hezbollah’s strategic decision goes beyond merely withdrawing south of the Litani River. As the party restores its strength and reorganises its internal structure, it is also recalibrating its political stance. When Hezbollah calls on the state to fulfill its duty to protect its citizens in the south, under the supposed framework of UN Resolution 1701 and the ceasefire agreement, which transferred security responsibility from the resistance to the Lebanese army, it is doing more than simply using diplomatic pressure to push the occupying entity toward ending its aggression and withdrawing fully from Lebanese territory. Since the agreement upholds the right of both parties to self-defense, and since the occupation invokes this right as a pretext for continued aggression and territorial control under the guise of perceived threats, Lebanon, too, has the legitimate right to self-defense against documented attacks, violations acknowledged even by members of the ceasefire oversight committee. Moreover, the ongoing occupation itself represents a blatant breach of Resolution 1701.
• Hezbollah’s stance is not merely a rhetorical argument that “we have fulfilled our obligations, while the occupation persists in its aggression and expansion, proving that diplomatic efforts have yielded nothing”. The United States, aligning itself fully with the occupying entity, now brazenly suggests political negotiations with the occupation, even advocating the conflation of Lebanese territories occupied in 2000, those which the entity was forced to withdraw from, with lands it has refused to vacate since then, falsely labeling them as “disputed”. Resolution 1701 explicitly identified these lands as part of a subsequent phase for withdrawal following those liberated in 2000. Yet, Hezbollah, despite pointing out these realities, is not responding in the way many expected, by declaring a return to full-scale resistance and military confrontation.
• There are indications that Hezbollah has sought to use its withdrawal, dictated by the evolving war dynamics, as an opportunity to reshape Lebanon’s defensive strategy, one in which the army assumes a primary role while the resistance acts as a supporting force. The belief is that placing the state at the forefront of any confrontation would significantly enhance the chances of victory. After the events in the northeast, there may now be a growing realisation within the state that a confrontation in the south is becoming inevitable.
