A visit to Washington by Lebanese army chief Rodolphe Haykal has been cancelled after his forces denounced Israeli “enemy” attacks on Lebanese territory.
Lebanese military and security sources said the US move is aimed at pressuring Lebanese authorities, amid growing frustration over the pace of Hezbollah’s disarmament.
The army chief’s trip was scrapped because the US “didn’t seem happy with the latest army statement”, a Lebanese security source told The National.
They said the statement on Sunday, issued after Israeli forces fired at a UN peacekeeping patrol, blamed Israeli actions “without mentioning Hezbollah’s disarmament at all”.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on X that Gen Haykal was “a giant setback for efforts to move Lebanon forward”. He criticised the army chief’s description of Israel as “the enemy” and what he called “his weak, almost non-existent effort to disarm Hezbollah”.
“The Lebanese Armed Forces are not a very good investment for America,” he added.
The stretched Lebanese army is heavily reliant on US funding. Lebanon's Finance Minister Yassine Jaber told The National on Tuesday that the military “needs support” and has been “under a lot of pressure by all the [Israeli] bombings and attacks”. Speaking on the sidelines of the Beirut One investor conference, Mr Jaber called for a “diplomatic” resolution to the problem.
In August, Mr Graham warned that if a peaceful route to Hezbollah’s disarmament failed, “plan B” should be considered, meaning “disarming Hezbollah by military force”. He was speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv after meeting officials in Lebanon and Israel.
Fellow Republican senator Joni Ernst said she was “disappointed” by the army statement. Instead of seizing the opportunity to free Lebanon “from Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists”, Gen Haykal was “shamefully directing blame at Israel”, she wrote on X.
The Lebanese security source described the decision to cancel the trip as “propagandic”, aimed at pressuring Lebanon and the army. “They want everyone to treat Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, and this will never happen,” the source said.
Another senior Lebanese military source said the cancellation was a “pretext” to escalate an “already fragile situation and exert further pressure on the army”.
“The Americans know very well that, internally, the army cannot directly confront Hezbollah in its statements,” the source added. “This is pressure on Haykal to change the way he conducts his work.”
'Serious violation'
Under the terms of a US-brokered ceasefire agreed last year between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group is required to disarm in stages, and Israeli forces must fully withdraw from Lebanon and halt aerial violations.
While Lebanon adopted an unprecedented plan to disarm Hezbollah in September and has lauded significant progress south of the Litani River, 30km from Israel, Israel has accused Beirut of dragging its feet, and accused Hezbollah of rearming.
A second Lebanese military source said American officials who paid a visit south of the Litani with Lebanese army officers said they were satisfied with the army’s performance.
“But there are certain groups aligned with Israeli interests in the US who are trying to create a rift within the American leadership,” the military source said.
The military source added the army was “surprised” by the US position because the Americans had always supported them. He added that the Israelis had succeeded in pushing their hardline approach, leading to an “illogical” approach towards the Lebanese Army.
“The Americans miscalculated this one, because frankly, the alternative to the army is chaos, militias and Hezbollah,” they added.
The Lebanese army statement that caused offence said: “The Israeli enemy persists in its violations of Lebanese sovereignty, causing instability in Lebanon and hindering the completion of the army's deployment in the south.”
It added: “The army command affirms that it is working in co-ordination with friendly countries to put an end to the continuing violations and breaches by the Israeli enemy, which necessitate immediate action as they constitute a dangerous escalation.”
The peacekeeping force, Unifil, also denounced the shooting as a “serious violation”.
Unifil said Israeli forces opened fire from a Merkava tank inside Lebanese territory at peacekeepers who were on foot, forcing them to take shelter as heavy machine-gun rounds landed five metres away from them.
Israel said its soldiers fired on the Unifil patrol due to “poor weather” and had mistaken the peacekeepers for “suspects”.
Israel has remained in five areas it deems strategic. It has also continued to strike Lebanon almost daily, saying it is targeting Hezbollah.
The UN said more than 100 civilians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire was agreed last year.
Since then, Unifil has recorded more than 7,300 Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace and more than 2,400 Israeli ground activities north of the Blue Line, the UN demarcation between Lebanon and Israel.
Peacekeepers have also recorded around 100 Israeli air strikes in south Lebanon, in violation of UN Resolution 1701, the agreement which ended the 2006 war, and on which the current ceasefire is built.
They have discovered more than 360 weapons caches and unauthorised military infrastructure sites south of the Litani since 27 November, 2024. Unifil said “none of them appear to be new”, apparently contradicting Israeli reports of rearmament in the area.
