Lebanon puts resistance on trial while its army abandons the South

On 2 March 2026, Hezbollah fired a missile salvo from the south of Lebanon towards Israel. The rockets were reportedly intercepted before reaching occupied Palestinian territory. Militarily, the strike achieved little. Politically, however, it carried a clear declaration of intent: after fifteen months of restraint and over 15,400 Israeli ceasefire violations, the Lebanese resistance was signalling its readiness to fight.

Lebanon at risk

The response from the Lebanese government was immediate — and revealing.

Just one day later, on 3 March, the government led by the US-backed president Joseph Aoun and the US-backed PM Nawaf Salam moved to outlaw Hezbollah’s military wing. The decision raised obvious questions. if Hezbollah’s weapons were legal before, then why had the government spent all this time and resources trying to disarm Hezbollah over the past year? If Hezbollah’s weapons were already illegal, why convene a cabinet meeting to restate the obvious?

The answer to those questions arrived very quickly.

On the very same day, reports emerged that Lebanese Armed Forces checkpoints were intercepting young men attempting to reach southern Lebanon with weapons. These men were trying to join the defence against the nascent Israeli invasion. Around 12 were detained.

These checkpoints were put in place after the Lebanese army had evacuated its bases and positions in the south earlier. The government justified the decision bluntly: confronting the Israeli army would be “suicide”.

Israel advances into Lebanese territory. The Lebanese army withdraws, clearing the way for the invasion. And when civilians attempt to defend their own land, they are stopped by that same army.

Then came the final nail into this coffin

On Sunday 8 March, 3 of those 12 young men were brought before Lebanon’s military court. Their charge: carrying weapons.

What this really means? Anyone attempting to resist the Israeli invasion will be treated as a criminal by the Lebanese regime.

A chronicle of governments serving occupation

History has seen this pattern before. Governments under occupation often turn their institutions against their own people.

In Nazi-occupied France, the Vichy regime collaborated with the occupier and persecuted the resistance. In southern Lebanon during Israel’s occupation, the South Lebanon Army under Antoine Lahad served Israeli interests against its own population.

If it’s not treason to remove the army from defensive positions during an invasion, actively preventing citizens from defending their country — and prosecuting them for it — must surely be treason!

Vichy France wasn’t an extraordinary thing that has never happened before and will not happen again.

Marshal Philippe Pétain isn’t an exceptional human being. This is what you get when you have a civilian government under military occupation. A treacherous government that serves the interests of the occupation against the interests of its own people.

So the question now that arises is: who is occupying Lebanon?

The immediate answer to that question seems obvious: Israel. And indeed Israel continues to violate Lebanese sovereignty with regular incursions and attacks — holds the Lebanese Chebaa Farms, Kafarshouba Hills and the 10 Ghajar villages, and has occupied 5 points inside Lebanon where it built advanced military outposts right after the ceasefire was signed.

But the deeper answer to the question lies somewhere else

All clear, you can come out

In Lebanon stands one of the largest diplomatic compounds on earth: the United States Embassy Beirut. Built in the town of Aoukar, just north of Beirut, in a country barely larger than the West Midlands, the embassy is a shrine to Washington’s influence over Lebanese political life.

The Lebanese people are being targeted with US made bombs, dropped by US made airplanes, funded by US-taxpayer’s money, enabled by the orange man in Washington. While the Lebanese government is obeying every US order — placing its sovereignty and right to monopolise violence at risk.

The US occupation of Lebanon is getting harder and harder to ignore.

Featured image via the Canary