Firefighters extinguish flames at the site of an Israeli overnight strike in the Msayleh area of southern Lebanon, Oct. 11, 2025. (Credit: Mahmoud Zayyat / AFP)
Following the massive Israeli strikes on Msayleh, in southern Lebanon, which sparked widespread condemnation across the country, Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF), said that only a fully sovereign state could protect Lebanese citizens from Israeli attacks. He sharply criticized the arguments put forward by “what is called the resistance camp,” which blame the Israeli strikes on the Lebanese state’s inability to protect the country’s south.
On Saturday, Hezbollah called on the state to “assume its responsibilities” in response to an attack that “cannot go unanswered,” a message reiterated Sunday morning in a speech by Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah. Similarly, Jaafari mufti Ahmad Kabalan delivered a message, also reported by the official National News Agency (NNA), accusing the Lebanese state of “engaging in foreign projects that undermine its sovereignty and national duties.”
“Whenever Lebanese civilians suffer Israeli aggression causing bloodshed, deaths, injuries and significant material losses, verbal sparring erupts … within what is called the ‘resistance movement’ to condemn these attacks, a refrain we have heard since the Naqsa [the Six-Day War in 1967] up to today,” the Christian party leader said.
He added, “Everyone knows that the only solution to protect Lebanon and its citizens and to repel Israel lies in the existence of an effective state that assumes its responsibilities and exercises full authority and sovereignty.”
‘Distorting reality for 35 years’
“No one is ready to help a state that does not monopolize decisions of war and peace or the use of weapons, and that does not assume responsibility for security and foreign policy. What some must do, instead of shedding crocodile tears every day, is hand over their weapons to the state today, not tomorrow, so it can fulfill its duty: stop these aggressions and permanently expel Israel from southern Lebanon,” Samir Geagea added.
Earlier in the day, MP Hassan Fadlallah had stated, during a ceremony in honor of the victims of Israeli strikes in Shaqra, southern Lebanon, that his party had accepted the formula of the cease-fire concluded at the end of November with Israel, which “stipulates that the state is responsible for protecting southern Lebanon and its inhabitants”, adding that he had “fully committed to ensuring the success of this formula.”
“However, the enemy continued its attacks and the state did not assume its responsibilities. We are part of this state and will continue to demand it, because it is responsible for facing this new reality,” he said.
“The repeated Israeli aggressions against the South constitute a continuous attempt to pressure residents to prevent them from settling and push them to leave their villages, with the aim of creating a buffer zone and imposing Israeli control over the south of the Litani,” the MP added before continuing: “The presence of the resistance and the readiness of our people to defend the South prevent any occupation.”
Jaafari mufti Ahmad Kabalan was even more incisive: “The moment is Lebanon’s and the choice of its directions, because southern Lebanon, like the Bekaa, is abandoned to its fate and to the destiny of its inhabitants amid an internal policy that cares neither for the South, nor the Bekaa, nor the suburbs, nor the community that has committed itself for decades to reclaim Lebanon from the Zionists and ensure its sovereignty. And although the state could do much in the South, it does not,” he accused.
These remarks were not directly quoted by Geagea, who accused Hezbollah and its allies of distorting reality for 35 years. “Everyone knows that the only solution to protect Lebanon and the Lebanese and to expel Israel lies in the existence of an effective state that assumes its responsibilities and exercises fully its authority and sovereignty … and that distorts reality, as has been done for thirty-five years,” insisted the LF leader.
‘Weapons hidden in tunnels’
Speaking from Jbeil, MP Ziad Hawat echoed the leader of his party, “considering that only a fully sovereign state can protect the Lebanese from Israeli attacks. Hezbollah must understand that its weapons hidden in tunnels and warehouses no longer have value. If it approaches the issue objectively, it will protect Lebanon and the Lebanese, because there are no longer any illegal arms in the region. Political actors and MPs must pressure for the handover of these weapons as quickly as possible. It is unfair that we, the Lebanese, pay the price of their adventures and their refusal to accept the new reality while they still live in another world,” he said.
Since the conclusion of the cease-fire at the end of November, Israel has almost daily bombed Lebanese territory and occupies at least five to seven positions in southern Lebanon, despite being supposed to withdraw. Hezbollah, meanwhile, continues to reject the government’s plan to disarm it, while Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, stated this week that the party is not conducting military operations “because it does not want to break the cease-fire”, ensuring that it has rebuilt its capabilities.
Several Lebanese state officials, including President Joseph Aoun, condemned on Saturday the massive Israeli strikes that destroyed hundreds of construction machines overnight from Friday to Saturday in southern Lebanon. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam asked Foreign Minister Joe Rajji to file a complaint with the UN Security Council. On Sunday, MP Ihab Hamadeh, member of the Shiite parliamentary bloc, stated that Israel’s aim in targeting civilian infrastructure in the southern Lebanon is to strike the lives of Lebanese citizens to force them to yield.
