American-Israeli plot to encircle Beirut’s Hezbollah stronghold unveiled

In a report authored by Amal Khalil, Al-Akhbar wrote about Western—particularly American—plots against Lebanon and the country’s Islamic Resistance, stating: “Evidence shows that Lebanon has effectively turned into a U.S.-Western colony, as most of its official and security institutions have become akin to judicial police, carrying out Western dictates aimed at uprooting the Resistance and collectively punishing its popular base.” The latest chapter of this project has been revealed in a plan to impose a security and economic siege on Dahiyeh.

According to Al-Akhbar, one element of Washington’s vision for a “Lebanon without resistance and weapons” stipulates that Dahiyeh should be treated similarly to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

This would involve setting up checkpoints at the entrances to Hezbollah’s “capital,” where individuals would be carefully inspected upon entry and exit. Strict restrictions would also be placed on the movement of goods and materials, with meticulous monitoring of their sources and destinations, as well as tight control over financial transfers and their end recipients.

Notably, sources who provided information to Al-Akhbar revealed that this mission would not initially be assigned to the Lebanese Army, but rather to an external security force—likely Arab in nationality.

The newspaper added that the project to suffocate Dahiyeh coincides with another plan to evacuate Lebanon’s southern border strip and establish a so-called “buffer zone.” The latest proposal within this framework envisions turning a three-kilometer-deep stretch of land along the southern border into an empty zone—free of buildings and residents, essentially a barren strip of land.

According to diplomatic and military sources who monitored Tuesday’s meetings between a U.S. delegation and Lebanese officials in Beirut, Israel’s plan includes, at some unspecified future date, withdrawing from certain occupied areas in southern Lebanon and converting them into closed military security zones. This indicates a new phase of efforts to impose conditions detrimental to Lebanese territory and its people.

On Tuesday, a U.S. congressional delegation headed by Thomas Barrack, Washington’s envoy, arrived in Beirut as part of the ongoing pressure campaign to impose Israel’s demands on Lebanon, particularly the disarmament of Hezbollah. The delegation held separate meetings with Lebanon’s three top leaders.

Under these pressures, the Lebanese government recently approved a plan to restrict all weapons to state control and demanded the Lebanese Army draft a proposal to implement the disarmament of the Resistance.

Al-Akhbar further reported that during Tuesday’s visit, the American delegation not only repeated Washington’s usual rhetoric about its alleged role in indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, but also went further, arrogantly demanding that the Lebanese government allow them to receive and review the army’s disarmament plan immediately upon its completion—so that Israel could also “give its opinion” on it.

In response to this U.S.-Israeli scheme to disarm Hezbollah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, Deputy Secretary-General of Hezbollah, stressed: “We will never relinquish the weapons that give us dignity and strength and that protect us against the enemy.”