ALBAWABA - On Tuesday, the Lebanese government held a very important cabinet meeting at the Presidential Palace in Baabda to deal with the rising call for the government to take control of all guns in the country.
The meeting was led by President Joseph Aoun, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam was also there. It happened because the U.S. is putting more and more pressure on Lebanon to give Hezbollah a clear deadline for giving up its weapons.
The main topics of conversation also included putting Lebanon's cabinet statement on national authority into action and the peace agreements made with Israel after the war in November 2024.
In the past few weeks, diplomacy measures have stepped up as Washington presses Beirut to take real steps toward disarming. Recently, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack told the Lebanese government that it needed to keep its promise and warned that the country's ability to control all armed groups may affect its ability to keep getting help from other countries. Hezbollah is the only group in Lebanon that kept its weapons after the 1975–1990 civil war, so the issue is still very controversial in the country's politics.
President Aoun said again that Lebanon is determined to regain full military control. In comments last Thursday, he stressed how important it is for national security to remove all non-state players, including Hezbollah. He said that if nothing is done, terrible things will happen and that Lebanon has to choose between falling apart and getting better. More and more countries agree with Aoun that state control over guns goes hand in hand with political and financial backing.
Hezbollah, on the other hand, has strongly rejected any idea of independent withdrawal. Sources connected to Hezbollah-affiliated media say that the group sees the American requests as an attempt to make Lebanon give in to Israeli interests. The group insists that any talk about disarmament must come with guarantees, such as Israel's complete withdrawal from lands it took during the most recent conflict, an end to airstrikes that break the ceasefire, the release of Hezbollah prisoners, and the start of rebuilding efforts after the war.
Israeli drones passed low over several southern Lebanon areas, such as Tyre, Qasmiyeh, and Mays al-Jabal, while the government meeting was going on, which made things even worse. There were reports that one of the drones dropped stun bombs near a residential area, but no one was hurt. At the same time, there were worries that the shaky peace might not last.
