Beirut withdraws Iranian ambassador accreditation, asks him to leave by Sunday

BEIRUT —The Foreign Affairs Ministry summoned the Iranian chargé d'affaires in Beirut, Tufiq Samadi Khoshkhou, to inform him that Lebanon had withdrawn the accreditation of the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Shibani.

Declared persona non grata, he must leave the country by next Sunday, March 29, 2026, the ministry confirmed to L’Orient-Le Jour.

This measure comes as the Lebanese state attempts to distance itself as much as possible from Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in order to remain neutral in the war between Iran and Hezbollah against the United States and Israel. It also comes the day after a targeted Israeli airstrike in Hazmieh, a suburb of Beirut, targeting a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's al-Quds Force, its elite unit.

In early March, the Lebanese government had already banned all Iranian Revolutionary Guard activities in Lebanon and deemed Hezbollah's military activities illegal. Despite these decisions, Hezbollah and Iran co-signed Operation "Eaten Straw."

This led Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to declare on Sunday evening that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are commanding Hezbollah's operations in the ongoing war against Israel.

After the launch of "Eaten Straw," Foreign Minister Joe Rajji summoned the Iranian chargé d'affaires at the request of the Cabinet.

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Not a severance of diplomatic relations

In a statement, the Bustros Palace indicated that this decision concerns the ambassador himself and does not constitute a severance of diplomatic relations.

Mohammad Reza Sheibani's credentials had already been accepted, and the diplomat had arrived in Beirut on Feb. 26, two days before the start of the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran.

He had not yet, however, scheduled a meeting with Rajji. Sheibani had previously served as ambassador to Lebanon in the 2000s. The Bustros Palace also recalled Lebanon's ambassador to Iran, Ahmad Soueidan, for consultations, following what the Lebanese state described as Tehran's violation of established diplomatic protocol and rules between the two countries.

Reacting to Beirut’s announcement, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar “welcomed” a “justified and necessary” decision. “We call on the Lebanese government to take concrete and significant measures against Hezbollah, some of whose ministers still sit in its government,” Saar said in a post on X.