On October 15, Hezbollah admitted that the explosives intercepted at Dahr el-Baidar belonged to it. The shipment, reportedly containing some 780 kilograms of explosive materials, was travelling from the Bekaa toward Beirut.
Hezbollah did not apologize. It demanded the release of the detainees and the return of the explosives.
More remarkably, MP Hassan Fadlallah dismissed the government’s decision banning Hezbollah’s military activities as null and void.
That decision was issued on March 2. The Cabinet had explicitly prohibited all Hezbollah military and security activities, ordered the organization to surrender its weapons, and instructed security agencies to enforce the prohibition immediately.
Seven months later, Hezbollah is publicly demanding that the Lebanese state return its confiscated explosives.
And this is hardly the first time the government has made a declaration it has struggled to enforce.
On April 9, the government decided to tighten state control over Beirut and restrict weapons to legitimate security forces. On April 17, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam assured Beirut’s MPs that the decision was irreversible and would be strictly enforced.
Six months later, where is the publicly demonstrated disarmament of Beirut?
In August 2025, the government adopted the principle of restricting weapons to the state. In January 2026, the Lebanese Army announced substantial progress south of the Litani, while acknowledging that important operations remained unfinished.
Then came the pilot zones, introduced under the June 2026 framework agreement. The Army deployed to Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh in July, but by September, Lebanese officials were still examining mechanisms to verify Hezbollah’s disarmament and expand the initiative.
Deployment was real. Comprehensive, independently verified disarmament was another matter.
The financial front tells a similar story.
In July 2025, Banque du Liban prohibited licensed financial institutions from dealing with Al-Qard al-Hassan and other designated entities. But the restriction was not equivalent to closing Al-Qard al-Hassan itself or dismantling Hezbollah’s financial infrastructure.
On October 13, Hezbollah announced a new programme offering up to $14,000 in assistance to families whose homes had been destroyed, underscoring the organization’s continuing capacity to mobilize and distribute substantial funds outside ordinary state reconstruction channels.
None of this erases the work of Lebanese soldiers, security officers or investigators. They have intercepted explosives, seized weapons and expanded state deployments, often under dangerous conditions. Israel’s continued attacks and occupation have also obstructed implementation in the south.
But these realities do not absolve the political authorities of responsibility for their own decisions.
The state has announced a ban on Hezbollah’s military activities. Hezbollah rejects it.
It has promised a weapons-free Beirut. The results remain unproven.
It has announced disarmament plans and pilot zones. Their implementation remains partial.
It has restricted dealings with Hezbollah-linked financial institutions. The parallel financial network continues to operate.
And now, when Hezbollah openly claims ownership of a seized explosives shipment, the government announces another investigation.
The problem is no longer the absence of government decisions. It is the growing distance between those decisions and the authority to enforce them.
What good are these decisions if they cannot be enforced?
It is a significant step forward that Lebanon finally has a president and government willing to reject Hezbollah’s vision of the state and withdraw the political cover the group had long enjoyed. Unlike their predecessors, the president and Cabinet are no longer Hezbollah’s mouthpieces, nor do they automatically provide political legitimacy to its actions.
That shift matters. It helps distance the Lebanese state from the consequences of Hezbollah’s decisions, potentially shielding certain state institutions and infrastructure during wartime. It also creates space for direct state-to-state diplomacy with Western governments, without Hezbollah dictating Lebanon’s official position.
But there is a limit to what political declarations can achieve without enforcement. In the long run, repeatedly announcing decisions that the state lacks either the will or the capacity to implement risks doing more harm than good. Each unenforced decision exposes the distance between the authority the government claims and the authority it actually exercises.
And if Hezbollah, even in its weakened state, can still deter the government from decisively enforcing its own decisions, then the message becomes unmistakable:
Even a weakened Hezbollah remains stronger than a supposedly strong Lebanese state.