Lebanon

Overview

Lebanon is a country on the eastern Mediterranean coast of the Levant, bordered by Syria and Israel. Its capital, Beirut, has long served as a port, commercial center, and meeting place for the region’s religious communities. Lebanon’s political offices are allocated by religious affiliation. That arrangement has sustained cooperation among communal leaders, but it has also encouraged patronage, impeded reform, and made national decisions vulnerable to armed factions and foreign governments.

Since independence, Lebanon’s defining political question has been whether its elected institutions can exercise authority throughout the country. The Lebanese Civil War, Syrian military dominance, and the rise of Hezbollah each weakened that authority. Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization with political offices, social services, and a military command outside Lebanon’s state forces. Its attacks on Israel have repeatedly drawn Lebanon into war. President Joseph Aoun, elected in 2025, has called for weapons and decisions of war to belong exclusively to state institutions; implementing that objective remains a central test of Lebanese sovereignty.

Geography

Lebanon’s narrow coastal plain rises into the Lebanon Mountains before descending toward the Bekaa Valley and the Anti-Lebanon range along the Syrian frontier. These features connect a small territory to distinct Mediterranean, mountain, and inland economies. Beirut is the principal port and administrative center. Tripoli lies on the northern coast; Byblos and Sidon are historic coastal cities; Tyre stands farther south. Inland centers include Baalbek and Zahlé, while Nabatieh is a major center in the south.

The Litani River runs through the Bekaa and southern Lebanon before reaching the Mediterranean north of Tyre. Its course became a security boundary in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted after the 2006 war. The resolution called for the area between the Litani and the Blue Line to be free of armed personnel, assets, and weapons other than those of Lebanon’s government and UNIFIL. The Blue Line marks the withdrawal line identified by the United Nations in 2000; it helps prevent incidents while leaving some boundary questions for the governments to resolve. Lebanon’s maritime boundary with Israel also became consequential as offshore gas development advanced. Lebanon submitted exclusive economic zone coordinates in 2010 and amended them in 2011, and renewed tension around the Karish field led Beirut to seek renewed mediation in 2022.

History

Lebanon’s ports and mountains formed part of successive ancient, medieval, and Ottoman political systems. Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Sykes–Picot Agreement placed Lebanon and much of Syria within the projected French sphere. France established Greater Lebanon in 1920. The republic attained independence in 1943, when its leaders negotiated the unwritten National Pact. The pact assigned the presidency to a Maronite Christian, the premiership to a Sunni Muslim, and the parliamentary speakership to a Shiite Muslim. Effective executive power rested primarily with Maronite and Sunni leaders, while Shiite communities remained comparatively excluded from the central bargain.

Lebanon fought in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In subsequent decades, the arrival of armed Fatah and other PLO elements made attacks on Israel from Lebanese territory a divisive domestic issue. In April 1975, fighting in Beirut between PLO militants and supporters of the Christian Phalange helped ignite the Lebanese Civil War. Defenders of the existing order confronted groups seeking major political change. Conservative Arab governments and, at times, Israel supported the former; the PLO and radical Arab governments supported the latter. Syria intervened while balancing sympathy for the PLO and its Lebanese allies against its wish to preserve the political order and protect President Suleiman Frangieh. Its intervention developed into lasting influence over Lebanese politics and security.

On March 11, 1978, PLO terrorists based in Lebanon murdered 38 Israeli civilians near Tel Aviv. Israel entered southern Lebanon on the night of March 14–15 in the 1978 South Lebanon conflict; its forces did not reach Tyre and its immediate surroundings. The United Nations established UNIFIL to confirm Israel’s withdrawal, restore international peace and security, and help Lebanon reestablish authority in the south. Israel withdrew after the operation, though PLO attacks from Lebanon remained a threat.

In June 1982, Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee against the PLO’s military infrastructure in Lebanon. Israeli forces advanced beyond the campaign’s initial forty-kilometer objective to the outskirts of Beirut. The 1982 Lebanon War forced the PLO leadership, including Fatah, to leave Beirut for Tunisia. Expelling it did not establish a durable Lebanese political order or end threats from Lebanese territory. Lebanese Phalangists carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982. An Israeli government commission found Defense Minister Ariel Sharon indirectly responsible; he resigned that post in 1983. Approximately 540 Israeli soldiers were killed from June through September 1982, and an estimate counted another 675 during the following 18 years of Israeli military presence in Lebanon.

Israel partly withdrew in 1985 but maintained a security presence in southern Lebanon alongside allied Lebanese forces during the South Lebanon conflict. The 1989 Taif Agreement provided the framework for ending Lebanon’s civil war. It shifted powers from the Maronite-designated presidency toward the Sunni-designated prime minister and cabinet and revised parliamentary representation. Syria nevertheless dominated postwar Lebanese affairs. After the 2005 assassination of Rafic Hariri, mass demonstrations and a parliamentary victory by the March 14 alliance preceded the withdrawal of Syrian troops. Syria’s departure ended its direct military presence but did not remove its political networks or Hezbollah’s independent arsenal.

Jewish history

Jewish communities lived for centuries in places that are now part of Lebanon, including Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, Tripoli, and mountain towns. Jews engaged in commerce and crafts and maintained communal and religious institutions. Beirut’s Magen Abraham Synagogue became a center of Jewish communal life in the twentieth century. Under independent Lebanon, Jews were recognized as a religious community, although they had no dedicated parliamentary seat. Their circumstances varied across periods and places; they cannot be reduced to a single account of either secure equality or uninterrupted persecution.

Lebanese authorities protected Beirut’s Jewish quarter during some episodes of anti-Jewish unrest surrounding the 1948 war. The community also received Jews arriving from Syria and Iraq. Its population later declined sharply as regional conflict, insecurity, and the civil war drove emigration. Fighting around Beirut’s Jewish quarter damaged homes, businesses, and synagogues. In the 1980s, Hezbollah kidnapped prominent members of the remaining Jewish community. The history of Lebanon’s Jews forms part of the wider Jewish exodus from the Muslim world, while retaining its own chronology and Lebanese setting.

Government and politics

Lebanon’s confessional constitution and political conventions distribute senior offices among religious communities. The National Pact’s Maronite–Sunni accommodation gave the Shiite community less power than its later political and demographic importance warranted. Taif changed the formal balance but retained communal allocation. Parties and leaders have frequently treated ministries and public bodies as sources of appointments and patronage. Disputes over judicial appointments, investigations, and cabinet formation have consequently become struggles over institutional control, complicating the provision of public services and accountability for official failures.

Hezbollah retained Lebanon’s political system while increasing its influence within it and protecting its armed organization outside state command. In May 2008, Hezbollah fought Lebanese government supporters and seized parts of Beirut. The subsequent Doha Agreement gave its opposition bloc a veto over central government decisions. Hezbollah’s consent became important to senior appointments and elections even when its members did not occupy the offices concerned. Political activity and social-service provision do not sever responsibility for its armed and terrorist operations. Its independent military power remains incompatible with exclusive state authority over force.

The election of Joseph Aoun in January 2025 showed that Hezbollah could no longer impose its preferred presidential candidate. Its representatives nevertheless supported Aoun on the decisive ballot, and its weapons remained intact. Aoun, formerly commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, called for arms to be held exclusively by the army and security services. He entered office during a 60-day ceasefire that required Lebanon’s army to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure in the south. His pledge set a political objective, rather than establishing disarmament. Lebanon’s ability to enforce that objective across its territory remains the measure of whether its government can control decisions of war and peace.

Military and security

Lebanon’s armed forces are responsible for national security, but Hezbollah’s separate command, stockpiles, and cross-border operations have constrained them. The Iranian regime helped establish Hezbollah and has supplied its network through Syria and Iraq. Under Bashar al-Assad, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and allied Iraqi factions used routes through Baghdad and Damascus to extend Iranian influence toward Beirut. Hezbollah also built political, educational, and welfare institutions in Lebanon. Those institutions expanded its influence without placing its military assets under Lebanese state authority.

UNIFIL has operated in southern Lebanon since 1978. After the 1982 Israeli advance, it spent three years behind Israeli lines, concentrating where possible on local protection and humanitarian aid. After the 2006 Lebanon War, its expanded mandate included monitoring the cessation of hostilities, supporting Lebanese army deployment, and facilitating humanitarian access. Its liaison mechanism helped reduce friction between Israeli and Lebanese forces. Yet Hezbollah continued to store weapons and build positions in the area covered by Resolution 1701. After a weapons cache exploded south of the Litani in 2009, Hezbollah blocked UNIFIL and Lebanese forces from the site and moved salvaged arms. Restrictions imposed on patrols in several villages in 2020 further limited access; Resolution 2695 later reaffirmed UNIFIL’s ability to conduct announced and unannounced patrols without prior Lebanese army coordination.

Israeli ground operations in 2024 uncovered Hezbollah missiles, launchers, ammunition, and combat equipment in southern Lebanese homes, public buildings, and agricultural areas. The findings exposed the gap between UNIFIL’s substantial deployment and effective prevention of Hezbollah’s entrenchment. The Lebanese state’s duty to secure its territory extends beyond the border zone. The November 2024 ceasefire called for confiscation of Hezbollah’s weapons and dismantling of its military infrastructure throughout Lebanon. Negotiation alone does not fulfill those terms while Hezbollah maintains an independent arsenal. Lebanese security forces have intercepted weapons shipments, but sustained enforcement requires control over storage sites, supply routes, and armed personnel.

Relations with Israel

Israel completed its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. United Nations officials examined implementation of Resolution 425 that spring, and the Security Council endorsed the secretary-general’s determination that Israel had withdrawn its forces in accordance with the resolution as of June 16. The Blue Line then became the practical reference for monitoring withdrawal and cross-border incidents. Hezbollah continued attacks across it. In 2005, the United Nations rejected renewed Hezbollah military action and called for respect for the line in its entirety. The withdrawal also exposed a Lebanese political divide: Prime Minister Rafic Hariri sought reconstruction and foreign investment, while Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, backed by Syria and Iran, pressed to keep Lebanon on the front line against Israel.

Hezbollah’s cross-border attack in July 2006 precipitated a new war. It fired rockets into Israel and placed military infrastructure, including launch sites and fortified positions, in civilian areas of Lebanon. The resulting fighting caused extensive destruction and civilian suffering on both sides of the border. Resolution 1701 sought to stop hostilities, deploy Lebanese state forces in the south, and exclude Hezbollah’s weapons from the area between the Blue Line and Litani River. Hezbollah’s continued military presence there showed how far implementation fell short of the resolution’s terms.

Following the October 7 attacks on Israel in 2023, Hezbollah opened fire across the northern border on October 8. Its rocket and missile campaign forced residents of northern Israel into shelters and evacuation. Hezbollah presented the campaign as support for Gaza, while Lebanese opponents argued that it exposed their country to destructive fighting without reducing the war there. The Israel–Hezbollah conflict escalated into the 2024 Lebanon war, including Israeli attacks on Hezbollah’s command structure and weapons and an Israeli ground operation in the south. Israel acted to protect its population from attacks launched from Lebanese territory. Hezbollah’s position within Lebanon does not remove the Lebanese government’s responsibility to disarm it and prevent further attacks.

United States President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron announced a ceasefire that took effect in November 2024. Its durability depends on Lebanese enforcement, Hezbollah’s disarmament, and arrangements that protect Israeli communities near the border. Israeli forces continued striking Hezbollah operatives and assets involved in rebuilding the organization, including targets on both sides of the Litani River during January 19–25, 2026. Some Israeli security proposals call for a permanent Israeli security presence or annexation of southern Lebanese territory up to the Litani; those are proposals, not provisions of the ceasefire. Other proposals emphasize demilitarization, Lebanese army control, monitoring, and eventual Israeli withdrawal from remaining positions. Each addresses the same unresolved question: whether Lebanon can prevent another armed campaign from its territory.

Economy

Beirut’s port, banking sector, trade, tourism, and diaspora connections long supported Lebanon’s economy. Postwar reconstruction under Rafic Hariri depended heavily on investment and public borrowing. The country’s confessional patronage system, weak services, and failure to reform its financial institutions increased its vulnerability. Large protests beginning in 2019 challenged political leaders over economic decline and the government’s inability to provide basic services. In March 2020, Lebanon missed payment on a $1.2 billion eurobond, effectively defaulting on its outstanding eurobond obligations. Currency collapse, banking restrictions, and falling household purchasing power deepened the crisis.

The 2020 Beirut explosion killed more than 200 people, injured more than 6,500, and devastated surrounding districts. Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned on August 10. The disaster exposed failures of public administration and accountability across Lebanon’s political establishment. Reconstruction of the port required credible institutions, customs and legal reform, competitive bidding, and capable operators. Hezbollah’s influence over state institutions further complicates attempts to establish transparent financial controls. Lebanon’s economic recovery depends on reforms that restore public trust, enable investment, and make state decisions enforceable.

Society and religion

Lebanon is home to Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Maronite Catholics, Greek Orthodox Christians, Druze communities, and smaller Christian and other religious groups. Its schools, family law, political representation, and public life reflect this diversity. The Maronite Church has played a major role in the country’s formation, while the Druze have long been influential in mountain politics. Diversity has supported a substantial cultural and intellectual life, but political allocation by sect can make citizens dependent on communal leaders for services and representation.

Lebanon also hosts large communities displaced by conflicts in neighboring countries. Arabs who arrived in 1948 and their descendants have generally been denied Lebanese citizenship and faced restrictions on land ownership and work in many professions. Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war have added pressure to housing, employment, and public services. Policies toward displaced families have at times produced abrupt local hardship, including demolitions and removals near the Litani River. These pressures intersect with Lebanon’s financial collapse, damaged infrastructure, and debates over national identity.

Lebanese society has repeatedly challenged armed power and political paralysis. Protesters in 2019 demanded functioning public services and accountability; Christian parties and religious leaders have criticized Hezbollah’s ability to draw the country into war without state consent. Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai has called for state control over weapons and decisions of war, warning against further conflict and arms smuggling. Such demands are part of a broader question for every Lebanese community: whether a shared state can protect civil rights, deliver services, and govern security without an armed organization exercising a separate veto.