Restoring sovereignty requires decisions that protect the Lebanese people—and a plan that turns the state’s declared authority into effective action.
How many opportunities can Lebanon lose before hope becomes a burden on its people? Behind the destroyed homes, the villages awaiting their residents’ return, and the exhaustion left by successive wars lies a question that reaches beyond grief: how can a country reclaim control over its future when its ability to protect its citizens remains weaker than others’ ability to endanger them?
Lebanon needs a practical answer: how Israel will withdraw, how the state will establish its authority, how Hezbollah’s weapons will be addressed, and how those displaced will return home under the protection of institutions capable of fulfilling their responsibilities. These challenges are interconnected, but that must not become an excuse for leaving all of them unresolved.
The November 2024 cessation-of-hostilities agreement created an opportunity to pursue a different course. By February 18, 2025, Israeli forces had withdrawn from population centres in southern Lebanon while retaining five positions along the Blue Line. The withdrawal was substantial but incomplete. Completing it, alongside the deployment of the Lebanese army, was an objective that should have been consolidated and built upon.
The period that followed was not free of attacks; Israeli strikes continued after the agreement. But Hezbollah’s decision to reopen the front on March 2, 2026, in response to the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, marked a dangerous turning point, followed by an Israeli air and ground offensive. Lebanon thus moved from demanding the completion of a withdrawal to confronting expanding military operations and occupation in the south.
Accountability is essential here. By what right is Lebanon made to bear the cost of responding to the assassination of an Iranian leader? Who authorised an armed organisation to make a decision of such consequence outside state institutions and without the consent of the Lebanese people who would bear its consequences?
If Hezbollah chooses to fight for Iran, why make Lebanon the launching ground for that choice? Why not assume the consequences from within Iran, rather than expose Lebanese villages and their residents to another round of destruction? An organisation’s commitment to a regional cause does not give it the right to turn an entire country into a battlefield for retaliation.
Nor does describing what happened as “revenge” place it beyond scrutiny. Military action must be assessed against its objectives, results, and costs. What damage did it inflict on its intended target? How did it change that target’s behaviour? And were its results proportionate to the losses borne by the community from which it was launched?
Without clear answers, revenge remains a political claim that requires substantiation. Hidden motives cannot be asserted without evidence. But the Lebanese people have every right to judge the decision by its consequences and to reject rhetoric that reduces their losses to another demand for endurance as the gap between promises and reality grows.
Israel remains responsible for its military decisions, its occupation, and any violations it commits. Hezbollah’s responsibility for reopening the front does not absolve Israel, just as Israeli attacks do not grant Hezbollah a permanent mandate to decide when Lebanon goes to war. Protecting Lebanon requires holding each party accountable for its actions, without using one side’s responsibility to excuse the other.
Yet criticism of Hezbollah’s decision is not enough to build an alternative. The state must explain how it will restore its authority and demonstrate its ability to do so. Ensuring that weapons are held exclusively by state institutions is a fundamental objective, but achieving it requires a careful assessment of the risks. An armed force’s setbacks against a foreign army do not necessarily eliminate its capacity to cause domestic instability. Leaving the Lebanese army to resolve the issue alone, without political backing and sufficient resources, could therefore expose both the military and the country’s stability to grave risks.
At the same time, fear of confrontation must not become permanent acceptance of paralysis. A serious phased approach requires an announced starting point, defined stages, review dates, and criteria for identifying progress and setbacks. Gradualism that changes nothing simply gives the status quo more time to endure.
The state can begin with steps citizens can see. A sustained effort to make Beirut free of illegal weapons and armed displays could demonstrate firm enforcement, provided it applies to everyone. Its success would become evident when armed convoys are stopped, shooting offences are prosecuted, people reporting threats are protected, and judicial proceedings continue despite political interference.
When a neighbourhood dispute no longer threatens to become a gunfight, and an influential figure can no longer close a case with a phone call, citizens begin to believe that the state can protect them. Trust grows through these everyday experiences and through the knowledge that the powerful, too, are subject to the law.
In the south, an initial area could be selected where conditions allow a comprehensive approach: clear security responsibility for legitimate institutions, no armed presence outside their authority, coordination with municipalities, and services that help residents rebuild stable lives. Success would be measured by fewer incidents, faster responses to complaints, and residents’ access to justice and public services. The approach would then expand under a national plan, rather than remain an isolated exception.
This requires a diplomatic and security process that completes the Israeli withdrawal and addresses disputed border points. Implementation could proceed through interconnected stages: a position is evacuated, the army deploys there, compliance is verified, the return of armed groups outside state authority is prevented, and violations are addressed through a clear mechanism.
Such an approach makes responsibilities identifiable and allows those who fail to deliver to be held accountable. It also prevents each obligation from becoming an impossible precondition for the next. Withdrawal would no longer remain suspended indefinitely, while extending state authority would cease to be a promise awaiting a comprehensive settlement that could take years.
Reconstruction has a central place in this process. Putting affected people’s lives on hold until every dispute is resolved punishes them for a deadlock they cannot break. It also leaves their needs vulnerable to political exploitation.
Where conditions permit, work can begin on repairing water and electricity networks, reopening roads, restoring schools and health centres, assessing damage, and establishing fair compensation rules. A family that has lost its home needs to know when an inspection will take place, how assistance will be calculated, who is responsible for payment, and how to appeal if it is denied its entitlement.
These details shape the relationship between citizens and their state. When assistance is delivered as a clear entitlement subject to oversight, people have less need to seek protection and services through political allegiance.
The army may need greater international support to fulfil its responsibilities. Any proposal for a multinational force working alongside it must be considered on the basis of a defined mission, clear powers, and firm commitments from participating countries. The value of such support should be measured by how much it strengthens Lebanese institutions’ ability to protect civilians and implement agreements, while the state retains decision-making authority and responsibility for negotiations and accountability.
Lebanon does not need to wait for a comprehensive peace agreement to begin restoring its sovereignty. It can start with a withdrawal that is implemented, a position placed under army control, a village whose residents return safely, illegal weapons that are seized, a court ruling that is enforced, and compensation that reaches its rightful recipient.
The Lebanese people’s trust has been depleted whenever decisions determining their future have been made outside their institutions, and whenever those institutions have failed to fulfil their promises. Restoring that trust requires placing decisions of war and peace under state authority—and holding the state itself accountable.
Then hope will have a defensible foundation: citizens who know who protects them, a government that can explain what it has achieved, and institutions capable of enforcing their decisions. That is the opportunity Lebanon must bring to fruition before its people pay the price of losing it once again.
