(Credit: X/@DRSamirGeagea)
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Sunday evening that “no one wants” a civil war in Lebanon, warning that if Hezbollah were to start one as a consequence of disarmament, it would be “devastating.”
Speaking at the annual Mass in memory of his party’s “martyrs,” Geagea addressed a crowd of his allies — among them Kataeb MP Nadim Gemayel and other MPs — as well as religious leaders. He said he was satisfied that “50 years’ dreams have suddenly come true” in recent months, referring to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria on Dec. 8, 2024, and the government decision, formalized in early August, to restore the state’s monopoly on weapons and disarm militias, especially Hezbollah.
Geagea lamented that achieving this point had taken “35 years of broken dreams and missed opportunities,” dating back to the end of Lebanon’s Civil War.
He said the Lebanese Forces would no longer accept decisions taken outside state institutions — the presidency, Parliament and Cabinet. He accused Hezbollah of repeatedly bypassing the state by unilaterally engaging in foreign wars, first in Syria alongside Bashar al-Assad and later by opening a front against Israel in support of Gaza.
Geagea also accused Hezbollah of losing its latest war, which exposed its weaknesses and infiltrations, while refusing to admit defeat. He said Hezbollah had violated the latest agreement with Israel, which went beyond a cease-fire to include dismantling all illegal military structures, handing over weapons to the army and disbanding illegal armed groups.
“You hide behind the Israelis, and they hide behind you, while the Lebanese people are trapped between the two,” he said, stressing that disarmament is “the only true national demand” and the key to building an effective state.
He rejected Hezbollah’s threats of internal conflict. “No new May 7, no siege of the Serail, no civil war — no one wants that,” he said, adding that if Hezbollah provoked such a war, “your problem is not with a community, not with a party, but with the state, its government, army, institutions, backers, and the overwhelming majority of the Lebanese people.” Any such conflict, he warned, “will be lost and devastating.”
Geagea reached out to the Shiite community, stressing that most Lebanese would not allow Shiites to endure "what Christians faced during the years of Syrian tutelage after giving up their arms."
“Times have changed,” he said, noting that there was no longer a Syrian intelligence apparatus dominating Lebanon, but instead a national authority stemming from a representative Parliament. “Shiites were not born with Hezbollah and will not disappear with it. As long as Lebanon exists, Shiites will exist in it too.”
He called on Hezbollah to “come out of its illusions and allow its base and Shiites to live like other Lebanese,” and invited the community to join the Lebanese Forces in a “project of rescue and reform.”
On Syria, Geagea said Lebanon should “turn the page on the historic conflict” and establish state-to-state relations with the new regime based on equality and mutual respect, free from interference.
He also addressed the upcoming legislative elections, scheduled for next spring, rejecting any extension of Parliament “under any pretext” and affirming support for expatriates voting for all 128 MPs, rather than a separate representation reserved for the diaspora.
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