Lebanon's army funding could be conditioned on Hezbollah disarmament, a senior American diplomatic source has warned, as the United States pushes to turn a fragile ceasefire into a lasting Lebanese-Israeli peace agreement — with Washington making clear it will not tolerate any attempt by the Iran-backed group to derail the process.
The warning came as the second round of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations concluded at the White House, hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump, who surrounded himself with his full diplomatic team: Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State Michael Needham, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. According to the diplomatic source, Trump deliberately staged the meeting inside the White House — not merely as ceremony. "This is not a minor detail," the source said, describing the setup as a calculated signal to Iran, Hezbollah, and the wider world that these negotiations carry the highest possible American priority and are conducted under Trump's direct supervision.
Trump's Gambit: Separating Lebanon from Iran
Despite Israel's initial reluctance, Trump imposed a three-week ceasefire extension — coordinating with Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, whose Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Prince Yazid bin Farhan worked in parallel on the same track. According to the diplomatic source, the Iran-U.S. nuclear negotiations track is entirely separate from the Lebanon file — a distinction Trump has been careful to enforce since the first round of talks. "Hezbollah is trying to market a linkage between the two tracks that simply does not exist," the source said. The extended ceasefire period, the diplomat added, is intended to create the right atmosphere for faster, more intensive negotiations aligned with Trump's ambitions for what he has described as a "historic achievement between Lebanon and Israel."
Trump's statements pledging Washington's support for Lebanon — to enable the Lebanese state to protect itself from Hezbollah — are not rhetorical, the diplomat insisted. "He has placed these negotiations in intensive care. Any attempt by Hezbollah to overturn this process — whether through popular mobilisation, field manoeuvres, or military action against the Lebanese government — will be met by the United States providing every possible assistance to the Lebanese army to suppress any such move carried out at Iran's behest."
The source did not rule out Hezbollah seeking to reignite hostilities in the south, given its repeated insistence that it remains committed to liberating occupied territory. Such a move, the diplomat warned, could be an attempt to upend the negotiations entirely by dragging the region back to open war with Israel — a scenario Hezbollah has reportedly sought to engineer through limited retaliatory strikes aimed at establishing new rules of engagement. Israel, aware of the threat Hezbollah's arsenal and its organic ties to the Iranian regime continue to pose, is nonetheless complying with the ceasefire extension, the source said.
Sources close to the White House also confirmed that the Lebanese delegation raised the issue of Israel's ongoing demolition of homes, villages, and towns in the south. While American diplomats found the argument persuasive, the Israeli side linked the practice to its military strategy — specifically, preventing Hezbollah fighters from re-infiltrating these areas under the cover of returning residents. Israeli officials assured their counterparts that there is no obstacle to Lebanon recovering its occupied southern territory, provided Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese army extends its authority over the entirety of Lebanese soil.
Reconstruction for Disarmament
Israel pledged to uphold the three-week ceasefire unless, in its characterisation, it is forced to act in "self-defence" against Hezbollah movements or attacks, and committed to facilitating the return of displaced residents living outside the security zone. In exchange, Trump signalled U.S. willingness to support Lebanon's reconstruction if Beirut takes further steps toward peace — including the potential establishment of a shared economic zone between Lebanon and Israel as a vehicle for prosperity in border communities, offering an alternative to economic dependence on Hezbollah.
Official Lebanese circles, however, have expressed concern that such a zone could become a mechanism for Israel to screen which Lebanese citizens may enter sovereign Lebanese territory — a prospect Beirut views with considerable unease.
The diplomatic source was unequivocal: the ongoing Lebanese-Israeli negotiations run directly counter to Hezbollah's strategic project. "Hezbollah wants to anchor the southern Lebanese front to the broader American-Israeli confrontation with Iran. Unifying those two fronts is an integral part of Iran's national security doctrine." The group's goal, the source added, is to use talks in Islamabad to reach an arrangement analogous to the April 1996 Understanding — a U.S.-brokered agreement that confined hostilities geographically to Israeli-occupied areas in southern Lebanon, allowing Israel to continue striking what it designated as Hezbollah targets at will. Such an outcome would redefine the rules of engagement while allowing Hezbollah to sustain a war of attrition against Israel in the occupied territories — a framework the group is already trying to establish through its calibrated responses to Israeli strikes.
The diplomat acknowledged that negotiations may not proceed at the pace Trump envisions. The Lebanese government has no intention of falling into the trap of offering Israel unilateral concessions — a course that would serve only Hezbollah's interests. In forthcoming rounds, Beirut will focus on Israeli withdrawal from the south as the essential prerequisite for any further movement toward normalisation. Israel's continued occupation of a security zone in southern Lebanon, the source acknowledged, will provide Hezbollah with a lifeline, allowing it to rebrand itself as a resistance movement against expansionist Israeli settlement activity. Therein lies the crux of the deadlock: Israel insists on Hezbollah disarmament before any withdrawal from the south, creating a sequencing impasse that, if unresolved by the American sponsor, could collapse the negotiations altogether.
Pushing for Foreign Minister-Level Talks
The American administration has made no secret of its preference for elevating the Lebanese negotiating team to the level of Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji. Such a step, however, would further antagonise Lebanon's Shia duo — Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri — and the source acknowledged that it would be a significant escalation in the political signalling the talks carry. Nevertheless, the source suggested it would not be surprising if Washington applied pressure on Beirut to make it happen, in keeping with Trump's step-by-step approach toward an eventual meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sources close to the White House were candid about their concern that the ceasefire could collapse. "The decision to go to war remains in Hezbollah's hands, and Hezbollah is bound to Iran," the source said. Should the United States opt for a military solution against Iran, Hezbollah would re-enter the fight in force — triggering a major Israeli response and bringing down the truce. This scenario, the source said, cannot be excluded. The administration is therefore pressing the Lebanese government to move swiftly on confining Hezbollah's weapons, and is demanding changes within the military institution — including scrutiny of the army's leadership, up to and including Armed Forces Commander General Roudolf Haykal, around whom the source said several question marks remain.
Congress Ties Army Funding to Hezbollah Disarmament
An ominous signal came from Capitol Hill, where numerous Republican lawmakers in recent days called for conditioning U.S. funding of the Lebanese army on Hezbollah disarmament. Congressional Republicans are seeking to impose strict conditions — and crucially, the funding lever sits with Congress, not the executive. "The Lebanese authorities must treat this with the utmost seriousness and take concrete steps on confining Hezbollah's weapons," the diplomat warned. "The Lebanese army cannot survive without funding. Many Republican members are tired of hearing promises from the Lebanese army about disarming Hezbollah without the hard steps actually being taken."
The conditions Congress is attaching to any assistance package include structural reforms by the Lebanese government — chief among them the overhaul of the banking sector, which the International Monetary Fund has long demanded and which continues to provide Hezbollah with significant financial operating space. American attention, the source noted, is firmly fixed on Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is aware of what Washington wants. "There has been repeated talk over the past years of sanctioning Berri and others who obstruct the reform process. It would not be surprising to see movement in that direction."
For the American administration, there is no alternative to the current Lebanese-Israeli negotiating track. The sequencing Washington has outlined is unambiguous: Hezbollah disarmament comes first — it was the lead item in the second round of negotiations immediately following agreement on the ceasefire extension — followed by Israeli withdrawal from the south, and then border demarcation leading ultimately to water-rights agreements.
