Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Lebanon that any move by Hezbollah to rearm or regroup will lead to a military response from Israel. Setting out Israel’s increasingly uncompromising position at a cabinet meeting on November 2, he said Hezbollah was trying to “rearm” and “recuperate” despite heavy losses in the previous conflict. Netanyahu asked the Lebanese government to honour its commitment to disarm the group under the terms of the ceasefire concluded last year. “We will not allow Lebanon to become a renewed front against us, and we will act as necessary.” His remarks signalled that Israel views any rebuilding of Hezbollah’s military capacity as an immediate threat requiring decisive action.
Netanyahu’s warning came after Defence Minister Israel Katz accused Lebanese President Joseph Aoun of delaying efforts to dismantle the militia. Katz said Israel would intensify its operations in southern Lebanon, declaring that Hezbollah was playing with fire, and the president was dragging his feet. “The Lebanese government's commitment to disarm Hezbollah and remove it from southern Lebanon must be implemented. Maximum enforcement will continue and even intensify—we will not allow any threat to the residents of the north."
The November 2024 ceasefire, which ended 14 months of conflict, is now under growing pressure. Israel maintains forces in parts of southern Lebanon and continues air strikes, it says, targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in breach of the truce. For Israel, any sign of Hezbollah reorganisation is a provocation; for Lebanon, the ongoing attacks represent a violation of sovereignty. The balance between enforcement and escalation has become increasingly fragile.
Tensions escalated further after an Israeli strike on November 1 in the Nabatiyeh district killed four people. Israel took responsibility, saying the dead were members of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force involved in weapons transfers and attempts to restore the group’s infrastructure in the south. A fifth operative who was killed on October 31, was a logistics expert working to re-establish Hezbollah’s infrastructure in south Lebanon. At their funeral, the coffins were draped in Hezbollah’s flag as the assembled mourners shouted “death to Israel, death to America”. Also present were Hezbollah members in military garb, declaring loyalty to the group’s founder Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September 2024, and also to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel, meanwhile, described the strike as consistent with its right to self-defence under the ceasefire terms.
In response, President Aoun ordered the Lebanese army to confront Israeli incursions, following an earlier ground raid that killed a municipal worker. Aoun, who had previously called for talks to end what he described as “the Israeli occupation,” accused Israel of replying with intensified attacks. His order reflects Lebanon’s struggle to balance national defence with the risk of a wider confrontation.
The Lebanese government has announced plans to impose a state monopoly on arms, extending the authority of the Lebanese Armed Forces across the country. Army sources said they have already destroyed numerous Hezbollah weapons caches and hope to complete operations in the south by the end of the year. Despite this, Hezbollah remains active and well-financed. Although weakened by leadership losses and battlefield defeats, the group insists that disarmament applies only to southern Lebanon, not nationwide.
International responses have been mixed. Egypt, a key interlocutor of the Middle East peace process, offered support for Beirut’s position, with Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly saying in a joint press conference in Beirut with his Lebanese counterpart Nawaf Salam that Cairo opposed any Israeli presence on Lebanese territory. The United States, on the other hand, is pressing Lebanon to implement full disarmament, warning that Hezbollah’s continued presence threatens regional stability. US Ambassador to Turkey Thomas Barrack, who is also President Trump’s special envoy to Lebanon and Syria, recently called Lebanon a "failed state" because of its "paralysed government". He said Hezbollah still had around 40,000 fighters and 20,000 rockets and missiles, and also pointed out that the group was paying its members $2,200 per month, while the official Lebanese army was forced to use substandard equipment and earned less than $300 a month.