Lebanon needs tools to disarm Hizbollah: France

Lebanon’s army must be given the means to disarm militant group Hizbollah, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told AFP ahead of his expected arrival in Beirut on Friday.

“France’s vision for Lebanon is that of a strong, sovereign state holding a monopoly on arms,” he said.

“The first step to fulfil this mission is to give the Lebanese Armed Forces the means to continue the work of disarming Hizbollah,” added the minister, whose country will host a conference in support of the Lebanese army on March 5.

Hizbollah emerged weakened from its latest war with Israel, which ended in a November 2024 ceasefire agreement.

In line with the agreement, the Lebanese army announced in January that it had completed the first phase of a government plan to disarm Hizbollah, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border about thirty kilometres (20 miles) south.

“The Lebanese government has shouldered its responsibilities by launching and carrying through to completion the first phase of this disarmament plan,” Barrot said.

“The second phase must now begin, and the plan associated with this phase is to be presented in the coming days, and in any case before the conference is held,” he continued.

The second phase of the plan concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, around forty kilometres south of Beirut.

Hizbollah has thus far refused to hand over its weapons north of the Litani.

The French foreign minister is due to meet Lebanon’s top officials in Beirut on Friday, the final stop of a tour that has taken him to Syria and Iraq.

On the other hand, more than half a million Syrian refugees returned to their country from Lebanon.

The residents of the Imam Ali Housing Compound, meanwhile, were coming the other way.

“The compound houses between 700 and 1,000 people,” said a Hizbollah official accompanying an AFP team in a guided tour of the camp in the Hermel area.

“They are mostly Lebanese, with some Syrians,” all coming from border villages the group controlled before Assad’s fall, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Lebanese nationals living in Syria had retained their citizenship, but made the area around Qusayr their home, living and working alongside local Sunni residents.

Agencies