Lebanon's Nawaf Salam Faces Hezbollah Test: What 24 Months of Tunnel Demolitions Really Mean

Two years to the day after Hassan Nasrallah's death in an Israeli airstrike, Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun instructed the heads of the country's security agencies not to send any representatives to commemoration ceremonies for former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah taking place today. The timing was not accidental. It exposed a deepening rift between Lebanon's new leadership and the armed group that shaped Lebanese politics for three decades.

This is not a story about symbolic defiance. It is a story about what happens when a government makes a choice—and what that choice costs on the ground. On the surface: a memorial blocked by presidential order. Underneath: 700 tons of explosives detonating in tunnels, a ceasefire increasingly fragile, and a Lebanese government betting its legitimacy on a security arrangement it cannot yet enforce.

The Memorial That Exposed Lebanon's Fracture

When thousands of Hezbollah supporters gathered at Nasrallah's tomb in Beirut's Dahiyeh district on September 27, 2026, no senior Lebanese government official appeared. No Lebanese high-ranking officials or political figures from Lebanon came over to participate. This was not a protest. It was a signal.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who took office in January 2025 as the International Court of Justice's former head, has faced an unenviable choice: How do you lead a country where one political faction controls a standing army of thousands and answers to Iran? His answer, so far, has been deliberate distance.

Despite orders to the contrary by Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and the Beirut governor, the display went ahead, angering Lebanese opponents of Hezbollah. The public rejection by Salam signals something deeper than policy. It suggests a government that, for the first time in two decades, believes it has diplomatic leverage to push back.

The Tunnel Campaign: 24 Months of Concrete Facts

While the memorial ceremony proceeded, the military reality on the ground offered no ambiguity. Over the past two years, the IDF has systematically demolished a subterranean infrastructure that took Hezbollah two decades to build. The numbers tell the story in concrete terms.

Israel Defense Forces used 700 tons of explosives to demolish the subterranean facility beneath the Beaufort Ridge in September 2026 alone. This was not an isolated operation. With the demolition of the Ali Taher underground site this evening, the IDF says it has now completed destroying a major Hezbollah tunnel network in the Ali Taher and Beaufort Castle area, which included a total of eight tunnels spanning 5.4 kilometers.

The scale becomes clearer when you examine specific operations. The Israel Defense Forces confirms it located and destroyed two major Hezbollah tunnels in the southern Lebanon town of Qantara, which it says were constructed by the terror group with "direct guidance" from Iran. The tunnels were built over a decade, reaching depths of some 25 meters.

What These Numbers Mean for Lebanon's Diplomatic Shift

The tunnel demolitions matter to Salam's calculations because they represent something Hezbollah spent 30 years building and cannot quickly replace: the infrastructure for a major ground invasion of Israel. The IDF believes the underground sites were intended by Hezbollah for use as a staging ground, where hundreds of terror operatives would arrive when called, gather equipment, and ready themselves to attack Israeli towns.

That capability is now gone. In military terms, Hezbollah's assault force has been neutered. In political terms, this changes what Nawaf Salam must negotiate with—not a fully armed Hezbollah capable of launching coordinated invasion tunnels, but a weakened group struggling to rebuild from massive losses.

Hezbollah is still in a very big problem within Lebanese politics, and it's losing ground. Levanoni theorized that Hezbollah's efforts to once again center itself at the heart of the political arena, by holding the mass event in Beirut, were falling short, especially as it has been unable to refund residents of southern Lebanon for all they have lost in the war it restarted on behalf of Iran.

The Ceasefire Framework and Its Fragility

The November 2024 ceasefire created space for this shift, but the space is narrowing. On 27 November 2024, a ceasefire agreement was signed by Israel, Lebanon, and five mediating countries, including the United States. The deal was designed to hold for roughly a year and a half, but violations and extensions have complicated enforcement.

Lebanese authorities said the 2024-2025 conflict killed more than 4,300 people and displaced over 1.2 million. Lebanese authorities said the renewed war killed more than 4,300 people and left hundreds of thousands displaced. These are not abstract figures—they represent the political cost Salam must manage as he tries to rebuild state authority.

Salam's Balancing Act: Three Contradictions

First: Military facts versus diplomatic necessity. The tunnel campaign has degraded Hezbollah's offensive capacity, but the group remains intact as a political faction and armed militia. Salam cannot afford to simply exile them from Lebanese politics—but he also cannot afford to give them veto power over his government.

Second: International pressure versus Lebanese sovereignty. The United States and France have pressured both sides to broaden ceasefire talks into peace negotiations. The United States has pressured both sides to broaden the scope of the committee beyond just overseeing the ceasefire, hoping to stabilize the region and secure a durable end to hostilities. But many Lebanese view direct negotiations with Israel as surrender of sovereignty.

Third: Reconstruction without security. Lebanon's economy has collapsed. The country cannot rebuild southern Lebanese towns while Israeli forces maintain a presence in southern Lebanon or Hezbollah maintains an independent military structure. Yet neither condition is likely to resolve quickly.

What Happens When You Block a Memorial?

When Aoun's office ordered security chiefs away from the Nasrallah ceremony, Salam's government sent a message: The state does not endorse this group's narrative of the conflict. But the message has limits. Plans to expand Nasrallah's tomb were rejected by his son, Jawad Nasrallah, who insisted that a grand complex should not be built while the organization's support base continues to suffer from a lack of housing.

Even within Hezbollah's own family circles, priorities are shifting toward material survival over symbolic resistance. This internal fracture may be as significant as the governmental one.

Lebanon and Israel held their first direct talks involving civilian representatives in decades on Wednesday, December 3, 2025, as part of a U.S.-chaired ceasefire monitoring committee meeting. However, Lebanese officials emphasized that these were not peace negotiations and did not signal a path to normalization of relations.

FAQ: Understanding Lebanon's Path Forward

Q: Is Lebanon ditching Hezbollah? Not entirely. Salam is signaling that the state will no longer subordinate itself to Hezbollah's priorities. But Hezbollah remains a political party with parliamentary seats and a social base. The shift is from unquestioned dominance to contested influence.

Q: Why does the IDF keep destroying tunnels if the ceasefire is holding? The ceasefire permits Israel to destroy tunnels in its security zone—and Israel has argued that Hezbollah's attempts to rebuild justify continued demolition. The tunnels represent a violation of the terms, so destroying them is technically legal under the agreement.

Q: What happens when the ceasefire expires? As covered in our analysis of Israel's Hezbollah Conflict 2026, northern cities have returned to near-normal life precisely because tunnel infrastructure has been destroyed. If Hezbollah rearms substantially, the threat profile changes immediately.

Q: Can Lebanon's government actually disarm Hezbollah? The Lebanese military has roughly 80,000 personnel. Hezbollah has an estimated 20,000+ active fighters, trained by Iran and combat-hardened from two years of sustained conflict. A forcible disarmament is not feasible without external military support Lebanon doesn't have.

The Real Test Ahead

Nawaf Salam's decision to distance the state from the Nasrallah memorial does not amount to a strategic victory. It amounts to the first clear assertion by a Lebanese government that it will not be subordinate to Hezbollah's political calendar. That is meaningful, but it is not power.

Real power will come only when Lebanon can offer its southern population security and reconstruction without depending on Hezbollah's consent or Israeli military presence. Right now, neither is available. The tunnels are destroyed, but the underlying conflict—over who controls southern Lebanon—remains unresolved.

For readers who have aliyah or resettlement plans, this regional stability matters directly to your timeline. As we covered in our analysis of Israel's Housing crisis 2026, northern Israel's recovery depends on sustained quiet. Monitor Lebanon's political direction—not the memorials, but the ceasefire extensions and reconstruction timelines—as the true indicator of whether this fragile détente will hold or fracture when diplomatic pressure mounts.

For now, Salam has made a political choice. Whether Lebanon has the structural capacity to enforce it is a question that will not be answered by ceremonies, but by whether the state can rebuild faster than Hezbollah can rearm.

Further reading: Hebrew Level for Aliyah Work: What Changed Since 2020 — AliyaToday.

Further reading: Israel's ₪5 Billion Power Plant Expansion: What It Means for Your Aliyah Electricity Costs — AliyaToday.

Further reading: French Aliyah Hits 5,000 by Late 2026: Government Incentives, Not Panic, Drive the Surge — AliyaToday.

Further reading: Beer Sheva Aliyah 2026: The Nine-Month Timeline Nobody Mentions — AliyaToday.

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