Lebanon’s prime minister mulls sacking army chief over Hezbollah disagreements
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is considering removing his army chief due to disagreements over how to confront Hezbollah in the midst of Israel’s latest war on Lebanon, sources have told Middle East Eye.
Shortly after Hezbollah opened fire on Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader - and, it argues, pre-empt an Israeli attack - Salam on 2 March banned the armed movement from pursuing any military activities.
Since then, Israeli attacks have rained down on Lebanon - killing more than 570 people - and US officials have piled pressure on the Lebanese state to follow through with Salam’s declaration.
That US pressure appeared to ratchet up on Monday, after an Axios report suggesting Lebanese army chief Rodolphe Haykal had resisted cabinet pressure to confront Hezbollah militarily.
Lindsey Graham, the influential Republican senator, responded by asking on X “why should the U.S. continue to support the Lebanese Armed Forces with this kind of leadership?”
Since this latest war broke out, conversations on Hezbollah among Lebanese officials have changed.
Where previously the debate centred on whether Hezbollah’s military role should be curbed, now arguments have focused on whether the army should be used to confront the group by force.
According to a senior official close to the presidential palace, the frustration with Haykal is real, but it is first and foremost Lebanese pressure.
“The discontent is local before it is international,” the source told Middle East Eye, describing a growing rift between Salam and the army commander over how, and how far, the state should implement the Hezbollah ban.
One minister described to MEE a sharp exchange between Salam and Haykal in a recent cabinet meeting.
The prime minister, the source said, argued that the army is bound by cabinet decisions and cannot act on the military’s political assessment instead.
Haykal, meanwhile, insisted that the state had multiple ways to contain Hezbollah’s activities and that a direct military clash was not the only route available.
The argument, according to the source, was only defused after President Joseph Aoun intervened to prevent a full rupture between the head of government and the army chief.
Public and private tensions
Haykal’s caution has been reflected in his public statements, much to the irritation of the political leadership.
Meeting senior officers after an Israeli commando raid on the Bekaa town of Nabi Chit killed dozens of civilians, Haykal said the current crisis was “tied to Lebanon’s survival”.
He said it “could not be solved by military means alone, but required coordination between political authorities, official institutions and the army in order to preserve national unity”.
For his critics, the statement sounded like a flat refusal to carry out the government’s order in the way some ministers expected.
Haykal’s defenders say that interpretation ignores the reality on the ground.
They argue that forcing the army into a direct confrontation with Hezbollah while Israel is intensifying its bombardment would risk shattering the country’s last functioning national institution and dragging Lebanon into internal conflict on top of external war.
Adding to the friction was the decision on Monday by a military judge to release three Hezbollah members who were arrested by the army days earlier carrying weapons and moving towards the south Lebanon frontline.
Despite being held on charges of possessing and transporting unlicensed weapons, the Hezbollah members were fined just 900,000 lira, around $10.
For critics of the army command, the episode became shorthand for what they see as half-enforcement: a government decision of historic scope, followed by implementation that remains hesitant, selective and politically fraught.
According to a senior official source, Salam has privately expressed a desire to remove Haykal and has discussed the matter with close political allies.
Yet in Lebanon’s fractured power-sharing system, taking such a step is not so easily taken unilaterally by the prime minister.
Notably Nabih Berri, the powerful parliament speaker, swiftly responded by publicly defending the military, saying that no one should think of “touching the Lebanese Army”, from the rank-and-file soldier to Haykal himself.
American distaste
The source close to the presidential palace confirmed there were serious discussions over Haykal’s future, but insisted they were not prompted by direct US pressure.
Washington hasn’t intervened, the source said, because the US fears removing Haykal could set a dangerous precedent that could weaken the very institution it has spent years funding and presenting as the backbone of state authority in Lebanon.
Still, the tensions with Washington are real and predate the latest crisis.
In February, Graham publicly said he had cut short a meeting with Haykal in Washington after asking him whether he considered Hezbollah a terrorist organisation. According to Graham’s account, Haykal replied: “No, not in the context of Lebanon.”
Like now, Graham publicly questioned whether the Lebanese Armed Forces could be considered a reliable American partner.
According to a senior military source, the mistrust goes back even further.
In November 2025, the source told MEE, a meeting between then-US envoy Morgan Ortagus and Haykal ended badly after the Lebanese commander referred to Israeli forces as the “Israeli enemy”.
Shortly afterwards, a planned visit by Haykal to the United States was effectively derailed when several meetings were cancelled.
Reuters reported at the time that Washington had scrapped scheduled meetings with the Lebanese army chief after objecting to an army statement on Israel.
The result is a standoff with consequences far beyond one man’s future.
On one side is a prime minister trying to prove that the Lebanese state means what it says when it claims a monopoly over arms.
On the other is an army chief who appears convinced that the state could destroy itself if it tries to impose that monopoly too quickly, too violently or at the wrong moment.
For now, the question is not whether Hezbollah has become the target of unprecedented official pressure. It has.
The question is whether Lebanon’s leaders are prepared to make the army bear the cost of enforcing that decision in the middle of a war.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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