Hezbollah struck Israel's Ramat Airbase with rockets within hours of the Lebanese cabinet's formal ban on its military activities — the most direct possible answer to a government demand for disarmament.
The strike exposed the distance between Lebanon's legal authority and its physical power. The same armed forces that withdrew from border positions rather than confront Israel's advancing 91st Division were now nominally responsible for preventing precisely the kind of attack Hezbollah had just carried out. The justice minister's order to arrest those who fire at Israel remains on the books. No arrests have been reported.
Hezbollah's defiance carries its own logic. The organisation has survived Israeli assassination campaigns that killed Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024 and parliamentary bloc chief Mohammad Raad days ago. Israel has named current Secretary-General Naim Qassem as a target for elimination and declared "no immunity" for any Hezbollah figure, including political leaders and civilian supporters. Under these conditions, Hezbollah's leadership calculates that disarming means accepting an existential threat without the capacity to retaliate. The cabinet's demand asks Hezbollah to lay down arms without offering any security guarantee in return.
The Ramat Airbase strike also complicates Salam's position with Washington. The US conditioned its restraint of Israeli operations on Lebanese action against Hezbollah. Hours after the cabinet delivered that action, Hezbollah demonstrated it was irrelevant to the military reality on the ground. Israel's Defence Minister Katz had already ordered the 91st Division to "advance and seize additional controlling areas" in southern Lebanon. The ban gives Israel no reason to pause and Hezbollah no reason to comply. Lebanon's government has declared what it wants. It has no means to achieve it.
