Lebanese army feeling US, Israeli heat over Hezbollah disarmament

Israeli and U.S. pressure on Lebanon's army to speedily disarm Hezbollah is intensifying, with the army chief cancelling a visit to Washington after officials snubbed him, a military official told AFP.

Lebanon's army has been beefing up its presence in south Lebanon near the Israeli border since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire last November sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.

Under a government-approved plan, the army is to dismantle Hezbollah military infrastructure south of the Litani river -- some 30 kilometers from the border -- by the end of the year, before tackling the rest of the country.

The military official, requesting anonymity as the matter is sensitive, said "we respect the timeline approved by the government and which the United States and other concerned parties are aware of".

But the official expressed concern that "systematic U.S. and Israeli pressure could pave the way for an escalation of Israeli strikes", adding that "the demand to disarm Hezbollah across all Lebanon before the end of the year is impossible".

Israel has kept up near-daily attacks on Lebanon and still maintains troops in five areas in south Lebanon.

Israel's military has intensified raids on Lebanon in recent weeks, accusing Hezbollah of rebuilding its military capabilities near the border.

The military official said the army was being pressured to search homes in southern Lebanon for Hezbollah weapons or tunnels under houses.

The Lebanese army has beefed up troop presence near the border since the truce, with some 9,000 soldiers now deployed there, the official added.

- 'Weak' -

Lebanon's cash-strapped army, which counts some 80,000 personnel and depends heavily on U.S. aid, is seen as a pillar of stability in the crisis-hit country.

President Joseph Aoun served as army chief before being elected as head of state in January with the backing of the international community, and his successor Rodolphe Haykal was scheduled to visit Washington this week.

But the trip was called off after U.S. political and military officials cancelled their meetings with him just hours before he was scheduled to depart on Tuesday, the military official told AFP.

Those who cancelled included influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who in a statement on X slammed what he said was Haykal's "weak almost non-existent effort to disarm Hezbollah".

Graham also criticized an army statement that referred to Israel as the "enemy" -- a standard term even in official discourse in Lebanon, which has been technically at war with Israel since 1948.

The statement in question condemned "the Israeli enemy's insistence on violating Lebanese sovereignty" and was issued after the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said Israeli soldiers shot at its peacekeepers on Sunday.

Since the ceasefire, UNIFIL said it "has recorded over 7,500 air violations, almost 2,500 ground violations north of the Blue Line, and over 360 left behind weapons caches that were referred" to the Lebanese army.

A committee comprising the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel and UNIFIL, holds regular meetings to monitor the ceasefire.

Since the truce, the army has been coordinating with the committee and UNIFIL to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure despite its limited equipment and means, with 12 soldiers killed during such operations in recent months.

- House to house -

"The Lebanese army is being asked to do what the Israeli army was unable to accomplish during the war with its missiles, aircraft and technology," the official charged, referring to demands the army search houses in the south, and noting it lacks the personnel and expertise to do so.

The army also seeks to avoid civil conflict in Hezbollah's southern heartland, they added.

A promised international donor conference to support the army has not materialized.

Hezbollah, which was created after Israel invaded in 1982, is the only group to have kept its weapons since the country's 1975-1990 civil war, doing so in the name of resistance against Israel.

The group says it is respecting the ceasefire but has refused to surrender its weapons.

An Israeli military official told AFP's Jerusalem bureau that the ceasefire monitoring mechanism was working but "not as fast as we want, not in the places that we want".

"We see the way that Hezbollah is rebuilding themselves... we don't let those kinds of threats grow in our backyard," they added.

Hezbollah still has long-range missiles, the Israeli official said, adding that "when we ended the war, we knew that they had between 20 and 30 percent of their fire abilities" left.

"You can never do zero... In order to do zero, you need to go house (to) house -- every place in Lebanon, which is kind of what we expect the Lebanese army to do, because we can't do this ourselves," they added.

A Western military source told AFP that "the disarmament of Hezbollah will probably not happen.

"Israel believes that after having its arm twisted by Washington over Gaza, it will have a free hand to deal with Hezbollah."