Division in Lebanon over Hezbollah’s confiscated explosives

Beirut, Lebanon – On October 5, a minivan was stopped at a checkpoint in Dahr el-Baydar between the Bekaa Valley and Mount Lebanon region.

Lebanese security forces discovered the car was carrying hundreds of kilos of explosive materials, including TNT and C-4, according to Lebanese officials.

On Thursday, Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah released a statement saying that the explosives belonged to Hezbollah which had demanded their return, along with the release of the two people detained in the vehicle.

“From the moment the vehicle was detained, the relevant bodies within [Hezbollah] immediately contacted the security and judicial agencies and informed them that the vehicle and its cargo belonged to the resistance,” Fadlallah said in his statement. “They demanded the immediate release of those detained and the return of the vehicle and everything inside it, as these are capabilities used by the resistance to confront the Israeli occupation of our land in the south [of Lebanon].”

Fadlallah indicated that the explosives were for use against Israel, which continues to occupy large parts of southern Lebanon, and not internally against the Lebanese government or other factions, as some political figures and analysts had suggested.

“We therefore warn the [Lebanese] authorities of the consequences of continuing to escalate their measures,” he said. “[Hezbollah] will defend its people’s rights and the capabilities it uses to confront the Israeli enemy and it will not tolerate any targeting by any party implementing American demands against our resistance.”

But many of Hezbollah’s political opponents, who blame the Iranian-backed group for targeting political opponents in assassinations in the past, fear that smuggled explosives will be turned against Hezbollah’s detractors.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam pointed out that C-4 explosives had been used in previous assassinations, although investigators have not established that the seized shipment was intended for such an attack.

Hezbollah has never admitted carrying out assassinations, despite repeated accusations against it, including the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

Regional implications

On March 2, when Hezbollah responded to ongoing Israeli attacks for the first time in over a year in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Salam and his government banned the group’s military activities. Salam’s coalition government includes two Hezbollah ministers who opposed the decision and the group has repeatedly defied the government’s declaration by continuing to fight Israel.

Fighting has largely subsided since June, when Beirut and Tel Aviv signed a US-administered trilateral framework agreement. Under the deal, pilot zones would be established as part of a phased process in which Israel would eventually withdraw its troops and the Lebanese Army would enter to disarm Hezbollah. However, the programme has had complications from the start as Israel never had a presence in some of the areas included in the pilot zones, according to locals, and Israeli demolitions continue in the areas under its occupation.

In recent weeks, Lebanese security forces have uncovered a number of operations aimed at smuggling explosives.

Lebanese officials have condemned the smuggling operations and Salam has vowed to investigate the incidents, particularly the Dahr el-Baydar incident.

“We will not be lenient in following up and expanding the investigation in order to identify all those involved in this criminal operation and those behind them,” Salam wrote on social media. “We will deal with weapons outside the legal framework with the required firmness.”

But the issue also points to growing disagreements between Lebanon’s government and Hezbollah’s leadership over the role of armed resistance.

Explosive concerns

Since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990, Hezbollah has been the principal Lebanese force to keep its weapons. This was ostensibly part of a national security formula of “the army, the people and the resistance” aimed at opposing Israeli occupation – which continued until 2000 before resuming in 2024 – and aggression, while the country was also under Syrian hegemony.

That changed last year when President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Salam came to power. The Hezbollah allied al-Assad regime in Damascus had just fallen, cutting off a powerful land route of weapons and financing from Tehran. The regional power dynamic appeared to be shifting towards a decrease in Iranian power and more influence from the United States and Israel, leading Lebanon’s leaders to announce that all non-state weapons would come under control of the state.

Despite Hezbollah’s opposition to the new leaders’ decrees, the Lebanese Army went about disarming Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon. Some Hezbollah opponents have declared the group weak and defeated, though analysts say the group still retains some fighting power and that Lebanon’s regional alliances could largely be determined by regional events.

Still, the group’s domestic influence has been challenged at times by the new Lebanese leadership, including in the Dahr el-Baydar incident.

Marcel Baloukji, a former brigadier general who oversaw the Lebanese Army’s border committee with Syria, told Al Jazeera that the recent busts, and particularly the Dahr el-Baydar incident, were connected to the security situation in the wider region, particularly concerning the US-Israeli war on Iran and the recent intensification of violence between Yemen’s Houthis and Saudi Arabia.

He suggested that Hezbollah could be looking to follow the lead of other pro-Iranian actors in the region and intensify attacks against adversaries. But he also added that Hezbollah may need explosives for drones to attack Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon.

Government difficulties

Despite the promises by Lebanese officials to investigate, analysts said concerns remain about how effective the investigations might be.

Issam Kayssi, a Beirut-based analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center, raised questions over Salam’s relationship with the Lebanese security apparatus. Lebanon has multiple security agencies, some of which have competing loyalties to different political figures or parties.

“We are more than a year on from the Raouche incident,” he said, referring to a Hezbollah event held on Beirut’s seafront in 2025 to commemorate the assassination of the group’s late leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine. Hezbollah projected the likeness of the two slain leaders on Pigeon Rock in Beirut’s Raouche seafront district, despite the projections being prohibited by authorities, prompting Salam to call for the arrest of those responsible. Security agents on site failed to act to prevent the projections and observers fear that elements of the security agencies may not be fully cooperative with Salam in the explosives investigations he ordered.

Baloukji described Salam’s relationship with the security agencies as “somewhat strained.” He added that it could be the latest file in a series of difficulties facing the Lebanese government, as Israel’s occupation and ongoing demolition of southern infrastructure continue.

“Our situation remains in a state of prolonged limbo, with no solutions in sight,” Baloukji said. “The framework agreement is stalled and there is no resolution to de-escalate the situation in the south.”