Lebanon

Lebanon is a Mediterranean republic of approximately 5.5 million people whose post-civil-war political order rested on an unresolved contradiction: Hezbollah maintained a parallel military infrastructure the state never dismantled under the 1989 Taif Agreement. The country also carries a pre-existing banking collapse (functionally insolvent since 2019) and the reconstruction burden from the 2020 Beirut port explosion, which killed over 200 people and caused an estimated $3.8-4.6 billion in damage. Whether a Lebanese state can outlast the militia structure that defined it for four decades is the question the 2026 conflict is forcing to its conclusion.

The 2026 conflict has killed over 1,029 people and displaced 1.2 million Lebanese, including 300,000 children. Israel excluded Lebanon from the Iran Ceasefire from the outset: Netanyahu's office declared it explicitly, and IDF operations expanded beyond the agreed 10-kilometre buffer zone. PM Nawaf Salam's government banned Hezbollah's military operations, expelled Iran's ambassador-designate, and ordered IRGC arrests, the most direct state challenge to Hezbollah's armed status in four decades, but enforcement remained beyond Beirut's reach.

On 1 June 2026, Trump phoned Netanyahu and halted Israel's planned strikes on Beirut. Lebanon announced a partial Ceasefire under which Hezbollah pledged to stop attacking Israel, the first documented Israeli military reversal under US pressure in 95 days. Netanyahu confirmed IDF ground operations would continue toward the Zaharani river, Israel's deepest incursion into Lebanon since 2000. By 19 June, a separate Washington-brokered Israel-Lebanon track had advanced toward a "lasting" Ceasefire, with the Lebanese Armed Forces deploying into pilot zones of exclusive control and further talks scheduled for the week of 22 June. Israeli strikes killed 58 people on 18 June and 28 on 19 June as negotiations continued. The MOU's clause requiring Israel to "terminate its war in Lebanon" is read three ways: Israel and the US say it imposes no withdrawal obligation; Iran's foreign ministry warned on 18 June that continued IDF presence would mean "annulment" of the MOU; Hezbollah has neither acknowledged the Washington track nor committed to its terms.

On 19 July, Lebanon joined Qatar, the UAE and Jordan in condemning fresh strikes and calling for a return to the 16 June Ceasefire framework, a sign of how FAR enforcement had drifted from the Washington track even as regional states sought to anchor it again.