Lebanese Forces

Overview

The Lebanese Forces are a Christian political party in Lebanon. They emerged as an armed coalition during the Lebanese Civil War, when Christian factions faced attacks from rival militias and armed organizations. Bachir Gemayel commanded the Lebanese Forces during the war. After surrendering their arms in 1991, they remained an organized political movement and became a party led by Samir Geagea. Their passage from militia to parliamentary party shapes their position in Lebanese politics: they oppose Hezbollah retaining an independent armed force outside state control.

The Lebanese Forces took part in the 1982 Lebanon War. During that war, Israel sought a Lebanese government headed by Gemayel as president. The organization’s wartime record also includes the atrocities committed by one of its units against civilians in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila camps on September 16–18, 1982. Israel established the Kahan Commission to investigate those events. The commission described the armed force at issue as the Phalangists, or Ketaib, and examined the conduct of Israeli officials and forces connected to the atrocities.

In the May 2022 parliamentary election, the Lebanese Forces won 20 seats, compared with Hezbollah’s 13. They became the core of a wider opposition coalition that, with independents, could command as many as 60 of parliament’s 128 seats. The party’s political weight has endured amid renewed security fears. Lebanese Forces officials Elias Hasrouni and Pascal Sleiman were killed within eight months of one another in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, Geagea challenged demands by Hezbollah and the Amal Movement to retain the Finance Ministry during government formation; the eventual compromise gave the Lebanese Forces representation in the Foreign Affairs and Energy ministries.

Founding and ideology

Lebanon’s civil war began in 1975 amid escalating violence between armed factions. The Christian camp from which the Lebanese Forces emerged defended communities and political interests threatened by a coalition of armed organizations and left-wing militias led by Yasser Arafat. The wider conflict drew in regional powers and divided Lebanese parties over the country’s political order. As the war threatened its Christian population, factions in this camp sought military and political assistance from Israel and Syria. Those relationships developed within a shifting war in which local alliances and outside intervention were closely connected.

The Lebanese Forces consolidated armed Christian factions under Gemayel’s leadership. Their identity grew out of wartime defense of Christian communities and the contest over Lebanon’s government. They were part of a broader Christian political camp that included the Phalangists, also known as the Kataeb Party. The organizations’ histories overlap, particularly in accounts of the civil war, but the Lebanese Forces subsequently developed as a separate political party. The Kahan Commission’s use of “Phalangists” or “Ketaib” for the armed force implicated in Sabra and Shatila reflects that wartime setting.

The party’s postwar position centers on Christian political representation and opposition to armed power held outside Lebanese state institutions. Its demand that Hezbollah disarm follows its own surrender of weapons at the end of the civil war. The contrast became especially visible after the 2022 election: the Lebanese Forces, operating as a party without an armed wing, won more parliamentary seats than Hezbollah. The party has argued through its political alliances for a state in which security forces, rather than party militias, hold weapons. Disputes over that principle remain central to its relationship with Hezbollah.

History

During the civil war, the Lebanese Forces fought alongside other factions in a conflict that devastated Christian and other Lebanese communities. In 1976, PLO forces and Lebanese leftists sacked Damour, a Christian village near Beirut, and massacred hundreds of inhabitants. Fighting also shifted among Lebanese factions as outside armies entered and withdrew. Following an Israeli withdrawal on September 3 during the war, militias led by Walid Jumblatt fought the Maronite Lebanese Forces. Jumblatt’s allies attacked Lebanese troops to prevent their intervention, and Jumblatt refused to halt attacks on Lebanese Christians. These episodes placed the Lebanese Forces in conflicts with both armed organizations from outside Lebanon and domestic rivals.

The 1982 Lebanon War brought Gemayel and the Lebanese Forces into the center of Israel’s attempt to secure a political settlement in Lebanon. Israel sought a Lebanese administration led by Gemayel as president. That aim formed part of a broader effort to end cross-border threats and reach a peace arrangement with Lebanon. The war also intensified Lebanon’s internal struggles, which continued after the initial Israeli military campaign. Gemayel’s leadership linked the Lebanese Forces’ battlefield position to a prospective Lebanese government, making the organization’s role political as well as military.

In September 1982, a Lebanese Forces unit perpetrated atrocities against civilians in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut. The killings occurred from September 16 through September 18. An Israeli military order had assigned the search and clearing of the camps to the Phalangists or the Lebanese Army. Israel’s Kahan Commission investigated the atrocities and the events directly connected with them. It held 60 sessions, heard 58 witnesses and examined documents supplied by Israeli government offices and military institutions. Its stated inquiry included whether the force described in its mandate as a Lebanese Forces unit had committed the atrocities.

The end of the civil war changed the organization’s role. The Lebanese Forces surrendered their arms in 1991 and disbanded their military wing. They remained an organized movement and entered postwar politics as a party. Hezbollah followed a different course: it retained its militia. That difference has become a defining issue in Lebanese public life. The Lebanese Forces’ continued participation in elections demonstrates that a party can remain politically consequential after disarming; Hezbollah’s independent arsenal has remained a focus of the Lebanese Forces’ opposition.

By 2009, the Lebanese Forces were part of the March 14 electoral camp alongside the Phalangists, the Future Movement and Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party. Hezbollah and Amal stood in the opposing March 8 camp with other allies. These alignments placed the Lebanese Forces within a broad coalition rather than a solely Christian political project. They also gave the party a parliamentary route for opposing Hezbollah’s influence over the government and its retention of an armed organization.

The May 2022 election reshaped the opposition. Hezbollah and its allies lost their parliamentary majority, while the Lebanese Forces won 20 seats. Alongside independents, the party formed the core of a potential opposition bloc of as many as 60 lawmakers in the 128-seat parliament. The result put the Lebanese Forces ahead of Hezbollah’s 13 seats and made them central to efforts to check its political power. The Kataeb Party was among the other factions positioned to strengthen that opposition. Differences among opposition figures continued to matter, but their combined strength gave parliament a substantial bloc outside Hezbollah’s alliance.

On May 29, 2023, the Progressive Socialist Party joined the Lebanese Forces, Phalangists and other opposition figures in backing Jihad Azour for president against Hezbollah’s preferred candidate. The decision showed the party working across Lebanon’s sectarian political divisions. It also extended the confrontation over Hezbollah’s influence from parliamentary seats to the presidency. For the Lebanese Forces, presidential and cabinet negotiations remained tied to a larger question: whether decisions about war, peace and security would rest with Lebanese state institutions or with an armed party.

Structure and leadership

Samir Geagea leads the Lebanese Forces as a political party. He headed it during the 2022 parliamentary election, the subsequent presidential contest and the formation of the 2025 government. The party operates through elected representatives and a parliamentary bloc; its 20 seats after the 2022 election made it one of the largest forces in the legislature. Geagea has spoken for the party on national security, Hezbollah’s arms and government appointments. His leadership links its civil-war legacy to its present role as a parliamentary opposition party.

The Lebanese Forces also have local members and officials whose activities reflect the party’s reach beyond parliament. In al-Qaa, a Christian town attacked by suicide bombers in June 2016, members of the Lebanese Forces attended victims’ funerals alongside Hezbollah’s Resistance Regiments. Lebanese Forces bloc member Antoine Zahra appeared in the town armed and accompanied by armed men. The episode showed how local security fears could bring members of rival movements into the same public space without resolving their national political conflict.

The party’s support is also significant to figures seeking national office. During the 2023 Kahaleh confrontation involving Hezbollah, the response of army commander Joseph Aoun drew scrutiny from Christian constituencies, particularly the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb. Their standing among those constituencies made their views relevant to his presidential prospects. The incident illustrated the pressure on state institutions when an armed party operates alongside the Lebanese military and civilians seek protection during confrontations.

Attacks and operations

The Lebanese Forces’ principal armed operations belong to the civil-war period, when they fought other militias and participated in the 1982 Lebanon War. The atrocities at Sabra and Shatila are central to any account of that record. Civilians were attacked in the camps over three days in September 1982 by a unit identified in the Kahan Commission’s mandate as belonging to the Lebanese Forces. The commission identified the relevant armed force as the Phalangists or Ketaib. Its inquiry was confined to those atrocities and directly connected events, providing a defined investigation of responsibility in that episode rather than an account of every operation conducted during the war.

After surrendering weapons in 1991, the Lebanese Forces’ role shifted from armed operations to electoral and coalition politics. That change distinguishes their position from Hezbollah’s continued maintenance of a militia. The party’s opposition bloc has called for Hezbollah’s armed organization outside constitutional state control to disband. The issue reaches beyond competition between parties: Hezbollah’s weapons affect the authority of the Lebanese army, the government’s ability to make security decisions and the risk that military action will draw Lebanon into war.

Security incidents have nevertheless kept the party’s wartime experience present in public debate. Elias Hasrouni, a Lebanese Forces official, was assassinated in August 2023. Pascal Sleiman, another party official, was kidnapped and later found dead in April 2024, making him the second Lebanese Forces official killed within eight months. The Lebanese Forces described Sleiman’s killing as an assassination. In response, supporters revived the civil-war-era warning, “Danger is knocking on the doors.” The killings heightened fears among party members and renewed disputes over whether Lebanese authorities could protect communities and investigate violence effectively.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb in 2024 against conduct he said could lead to another civil war. The warning came amid tensions sharpened by Sleiman’s death. Geagea, for his part, warned on August 7, 2024, that the war involving Hezbollah and Israel would have catastrophic results for Lebanon. He held those who began military operations in southern Lebanon responsible for the country’s resulting losses. His position continued the party’s argument that decisions exposing Lebanon to war must be made by state institutions rather than by Hezbollah’s armed leadership.

Current status

The Lebanese Forces remain a major parliamentary party and a leading opponent of Hezbollah’s independent armed power. Their demand for disarmament draws on their own postwar course: they surrendered weapons in 1991, continued as a political organization and won 20 seats in 2022. Hezbollah retained its militia while holding 13 seats after that election. The comparison is central to the Lebanese Forces’ case that political representation does not require an armed wing. It also informs their support for the Lebanese state’s exclusive authority over weapons.

Lebanon’s security arrangements have given that dispute renewed urgency. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 called for the area south of the Litani River to be free of armed forces and weapons other than those of the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL. Hezbollah did not disarm after the resolution. President Joseph Aoun later called for weapons to be held exclusively by Lebanon’s army and security forces, directly challenging Hezbollah’s independent arsenal. In 2025, the Lebanese government instructed the army to prepare a plan to dismantle militias, including Hezbollah. Progress and delays in that process have remained politically consequential for Hezbollah’s opponents.

The party also participates in government bargaining. During formation of the 2025 cabinet, Geagea opposed the demand by Amal and Hezbollah that the Finance Ministry remain in their camp. The compromise left Finance with Amal while giving the Lebanese Forces representation in the Foreign Affairs and Energy ministries. Their entry into those portfolios marked a move from opposition alone toward a place in government, while leaving the central dispute over Hezbollah’s weapons unresolved.

The Lebanese Forces’ current position combines electoral strength, participation in state institutions and concern for the safety of their officials and supporters. Their history includes armed leadership under Gemayel, responsibility for atrocities committed by a Lebanese Forces unit at Sabra and Shatila, and the decision to surrender weapons after the civil war. Their present leadership under Geagea seeks influence through parliament and government. Whether Lebanon can place all armed force under state authority remains the question on which the party’s opposition to Hezbollah is most sharply defined.