Lebanese President Aoun’s Supreme Defense Council Warns Hamas

The new Lebanese President, Joseph Aoun, does not want his country to be drawn either by Hamas or Hezbollah into a conflict with Israel. If either group were to continue to launch rockets at Israel from Lebanese soil, the Israelis will respond, and that response will inevitably destroy Lebanese infrastructure and endanger the lives of Lebanese civilians, given that both Hamas and Hezbollah hide their operatives, their weapons, and their rocket launchers, in and among civilians. Hezbollah has been greatly weakened from the battering it has received from the IDF, which has managed to destroy between 80% and 90% of Hezbollah’s vast arsenal of rockets and missiles, to kill some 4500 Hezbollah fighters, and to severely wound another 3800 using those “exploding pagers.” As a consequence, 95% of Hezbollah operatives who were located south of the Litani River have been forced to move north of the river. The Lebanese army is now engaged in mopping-up operations, pushing the remaining Hezbollah operatives north of the river.

And now President Aoun’s Supreme Defense Council feels that Hamas, too, has been so battered by the IDF in Gaza that its relative handful of operatives in Lebanon should be easier to deal with. That Supreme Defense Council has just now expressed his government’s determination to rein in the terror group. For more on the Lebanese government’s warning to Hamas, see here: “Lebanon Warns Hamas Not to Compromise Its National Security,” Algemeiner, May 2, 2025:

Lebanon has warned Palestinian terrorist group Hamas not to conduct operations that compromise the country’s security or sovereignty, Beirut’s Supreme Defense Council said on Friday.

The announcement came with Lebanon facing growing US pressure to disarm militant groups outside state control following last year’s war between Israel and Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran.

Should Hamas conduct operations against Israel from Lebanese soil, the IDF will then respond, much more forcefully, and unavoidably will do great damage to infrastructure, and likely to Lebanese civilians among whom Hamas, as always, has hidden its operatives, its weapons, and its rocket launchers.

The ceasefire that ended that conflict called on Lebanon to disarm “all armed groups in Lebanon” and dismantle unauthorized military infrastructure.

Mohammad al-Mustafa, secretary-general of the Supreme Defense Council, told reporters on Friday that the body would recommend a series of decisions to Lebanon‘s cabinet, including “warning Hamas against using Lebanese territory to carry out any actions that threaten Lebanese national security.”

The Lebanese government, quite understandably, wants both terror groups to stop using Lebanon for their own wars against Israel. In Lebanon south of the Litani, Hezbollah has been forced by the terms of the ceasefire with Israel, to move north of the Litani River. Soldiers of the Lebanese National Army have been emboldened to take on the small numbers of Hezbollah who still remain south of the Litani. An astonishing 95% of them have now cleared out and moved north. The IDF has so weakened Hezbollah, destroying 80%-90% of its vast arsenal of rockets, missiles, and mortars, as well as killing 4500 of its operatives, and severely wounding another 3800 with the “exploding pagers,” that the Lebanese National Army has finally been able to act against what remains of the group between the Litani River and the border with Israel.

Now the Aoun government has warned the other remaining terror group, Hamas, not to use Lebanese territory to attack Israel.

Hamas has been defeated in Gaza. It has lost more than 25,000 operatives, and 80% of its weaponry. Hezbollah has been defeated in southern Beirut and in south Lebanon. Nearly 5,000 of its operatives have been killed. 80%-90% of its vast arsenal of rockets, missiles, and mortars have been either destroyed or used up. In Syria, the IDF has managed to destroy at least 90% of the weapons left behind by Assad’s soldiers after his regime collapsed. And now, in a final blow, the Lebanese army has both helped push Hezbollah fighters north of the Litani River and is prepared to enforce the government’s edict demanding that Hamas and Hezbollah not launch any attacks on Israel from Lebanon and that all groups save for the national army — not just Hamas or Hezbollah — turn in their weapons. That will occur either peacefully, leaving Hamas and Hezbollah shorn of their military, or forcibly, in a contest that the Lebanese Army, strengthened by American financing and weapons, should now, thanks to what the IDF did to weaken both groups, easily win.