Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals

Analysis Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals
Witkoff, a Jew with close ties to Israel and business links to the Arab world, feels a deep connection to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza that followed. (AFP/File)
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Updated 29 January 2025
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Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals

Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals
  • The envoy, currently visting the region, helped seal the Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas
  • Has little diplomatic experience but fits the Trump mold as loyal and a tough negotiator

LONDON: When President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff viewed with his own eyes on Wednesday the devastation wrought on Gaza, it might have taken him back to another apocalyptic vision in his home city of New York.

The real estate investor and developer, who has been credited with an instrumental role in securing the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, was watching from his office window as the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Bronx-born Witkoff rushed to pick up his children before heading to Ground Zero. According to the book “The New Kings of New York,” he spent much of the night holding a rope attached to a firefighter digging through debris for survivors.

“Guys who had uniforms on are walking up these staircases to rescue people, and they all died,” Witkoff said of the terror attacks. “They didn’t go home to their families. That’s when I remember thinking: ‘I cannot do enough.’”




Witkoff is one of Trump’s closest friends, golf partner and a fellow New Yorker, who has known the president for decades. (AFP)

It may have been a similar sentiment that drove the 67-year-old billionaire to accept an offer from his close friend Trump to take on one of his administration’s most challenging foreign policy positions.

Witkoff, a Jew with close ties to Israel and business links to the Arab world, feels a deep connection to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza that followed.

He has spoken movingly about the suffering of Israeli hostages, but also described a unity with those who lost children throughout the conflict by drawing parallels with his own grief. Witkoff’s son Andrew died from an opioid overdose at the age of 22 in 2011.

A Middle Eastern diplomat told NBC News that Witkoff talked about his son during the ceasefire negotiations, telling officials he “empathizes with parents who have lost children on both sides.”

In remarks in New York on Sunday night, he said: “I’m always comparing my family and what it went through when I lost my boy, Andrew, and what it must have been like for these families not knowing what was going to happen to their girls.

“So, when the president asked me to do this, I thought to myself, this will be the most worthy thing I could ever do in my life. Nothing else would matter beyond this.”




Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip. (AP)

When Trump appointed Witkoff in November he was an outsider to the traditional world of diplomacy, with no foreign policy experience.

Yet, this fits the Trump mold perfectly — selecting his most important team members based on two criteria: that he trusts them implicitly and that they can ruthlessly close a deal.

With the Gaza ceasefire in place and progressing through the first of three phases, attention will now be drawn to how Witkoff can keep the process on track.

But he is already looking further ahead to whether the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries reached during Trump’s first term could be expanded to include Saudi Arabia and other countries such as Qatar.

BIO

Name: Steven Charles Witkoff

Birth: March 15, 1957

Occupation: Real estate investor and developer

Home city: New York



If successful, attention would turn to whether the Trump administration could finally broker the ultimate deal — a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Gaza ceasefire took effect on Jan. 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration. The deal led to rare cooperation between the incoming administration and the outgoing Joe Biden presidency.

While the main terms of the agreement had been largely the same for eight months, it was Trump’s demand that it should be in place before he took office or there would be “all hell to pay” that added the necessary pressure.




Liri Albag reunited with family at an army screening point in Reim in southern Israel. (AFP)



The man turning the screws on both sides was Witkoff.

As details of the deal emerged, so did Israeli media reports that Trump’s envoy had deployed his ruthless streak to get things over the line.

He called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Friday Jan. 11 from Qatar, where the negotiations were taking place, to say he would fly to Israel to discuss the agreement the following afternoon.

When Netanyahu’s aides suggested he would not be available during the Jewish Sabbath, Witkoff delivered an unequivocal “salty” response and the meeting went ahead.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Witkoff told Netanyahu: “The president has been a great friend of Israel, and now it’s time to be a friend back.” Netanyahu was forced to accept the agreement, bringing a halt to 15 months of fighting and starting a series of exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

In a subsequent interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Witkoff said: “We had a discussion with the prime minister about how we needed to get focused in a short period of time and get organized so that we could get to the finish line.

“He convened what looked to me like maybe nine, 10, 11 of the top commanders in the Israeli armed forces. He gave direction to his team to be very proactive, and that was the difference maker.”




Netanyahu, left, was forced to accept the agreement, bringing a halt to 15 months of fighting and starting a series of exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. (Israeli PM’s office)



Merissa Khurma, Middle East Program director at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, said that while Biden’s team also deserved credit, it was the pressure from Trump and his relationship with Witkoff that was key to getting the agreement done.

“Empowered with this trust that he (Witkoff) has from President Trump and given that he was clearly given the green light to pressure both sides to make this happen he was able to be very effective,” Khurma told Arab News.

“Without this pressure, that was important not just on Hamas, but particularly on Netanyahu himself, it would have been very difficult to pull this through.”

Witkoff is one of Trump’s closest friends, golf partner and a fellow New Yorker, who has known the president for decades.

He was raised on Long Island and studied law at Hofstra University. He joined the Dreyer & Traub legal firm where Trump was a client, but his ambitions switched — he wanted to become one of the real estate tycoons he was representing.

He started a company in 1985 that bought up relatively cheap New York tenement buildings, often doing maintenance work himself.

When he moved over to office buildings, things took off and in 1997 he set up the Witkoff Group. Purchases of famous New York skyscrapers including the Woolworth and Daily News buildings followed. More recently he has focused on Florida, where he relocated in 2019.

An indication of his business links with Arab countries came in 2023 when the Witkoff Group sold Manhattan’s Park Lane Hotel to the Qatari Investment Authority for $623 million.

Real estate associates described Witkoff as “smart, personable and a talented negotiator with a common touch,” the Journal reported.




Witkoff was expected to be in Israel on Wednesday to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire in Gaza and inspect Israeli “corridors” carved through the territory. (AP)

His friendship with the president has grown deeper during personal traumas. At the Republican National Convention in July, Witkoff described how Trump, “a kind and compassionate person,” had helped him get through the grief of losing his son. He was then invited to speak at a White House Summit on the opioid crisis in 2018.

Witkoff was playing golf with Trump in Florida in September when a second assassination attempt was made on the future president.

It was during Trump’s second run at the presidency that Witkoff’s role became more prominent.

He was a key fundraiser, providing a link to wealthy Jewish donors and in an early test of his diplomatic skills he was deployed on several occasions to smooth things over between Trump and prominent Republicans.

In the announcement of his appointment, Trump’s brief statement said: “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”

The selection of a trusted businessman with no diplomacy experience matched Trump’s appointment of Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, to the same position in his first term.

Kushner oversaw the Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic and trade relations between Israel and the UAE, along with Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.




Witkoff has spoken movingly about the suffering of Israeli hostages. (AFP)

While the Accords are often criticized because they had little Palestinian involvement, they were still heralded as a major breakthrough in the Middle East and a big foreign policy win for the Trump administration.

“This transactional nature of dealmaking works very well with the regional leaders, particularly in the GCC,” Khurma said.

They are not really threatened by Trump’s “America First” strategy, she added. They also want to see “the Middle East great again” and want to work toward that.

Placing Witkoff as his Middle East figurehead, even without the deep regional understanding, shows how much Trump trusts him to deliver his version of transactional, dealmaking diplomacy.

“We have people that know everything about the Middle East, but they can’t speak properly,” Trump said of Witkoff earlier this month. “He is a great negotiator, that’s what I need.”




Thousands of Palestinians have headed back to their homes in the north since a ceasefire deal was agreed. (AP)



However, as Trump found out this week when he suggested that large numbers of Palestinians could be moved out of Gaza permanently, not fully grasping the regional dynamics can cause problems. The president’s idea was met with strong rebuttals from Jordan and Egypt.

Beyond ensuring the ceasefire plan progresses to the next phase, Witkoff will be pushing for a normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Saudi Arabia’s firm position is that ties with Israel would only happen once a Palestinian state has been established.

Witkoff was expected to be in Israel on Wednesday to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire in Gaza and inspect Israeli “corridors” carved through the territory.




Placing Witkoff as his Middle East figurehead, shows how much Trump trusts him to deliver his version of transactional, dealmaking diplomacy. (AP)

There is already concern over whether the next phase of the ceasefire will hold, with Netanyahu under pressure from the hardline members of his government. Witkoff will have to deploy all of his boardroom nous to keep the fragile ceasefire, in a complex and devastating conflict, on track.

“The Middle East envoy does not necessarily understand all the different dynamics at play but it seems that he has good rapport with the Arab allies of the United States,” Khurma said.

“But they’re going to have to be confronted with a very delicate balancing act with regard to how they support Israel, but at the same time exert the necessary pressure to keep things moving.”

 


UN says reports of possible expansion of Israeli Gaza operations ‘deeply alarming’ at session on hostages

UN says reports of possible expansion of Israeli Gaza operations ‘deeply alarming’ at session on hostages
Updated 57 min 31 sec ago
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UN says reports of possible expansion of Israeli Gaza operations ‘deeply alarming’ at session on hostages

UN says reports of possible expansion of Israeli Gaza operations ‘deeply alarming’ at session on hostages
  • Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar also spoke ahead of the session to highlight the plight of Israeli hostages

NEW YORK: The United Nations on Tuesday called reports about a possible decision to expand Israel’s military operations throughout the Gaza Strip “deeply alarming” if true.

UN Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca told a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Gaza that such a move “would risk catastrophic consequences ... and could further endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza.”

He continued: “International law is clear in the regard, Gaza is and must remain an integral part of the future Palestinian state.”

He added that the UN had also been clear that there was only one path to ending the ongoing violence and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, through a full and permanent ceasefire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.

“Life-saving humanitarian aid must flow into Gaza at scale and without obstruction, and civilians must be guaranteed safe, unhindered access to assistance. There is no military solution to the conflict in Gaza or the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he said.

“We must establish political and security frameworks that can relieve the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, start early recovery and reconstruction, address the legitimate security concerns of Israelis and Palestinians, and secure an end to Israel’s unlawful occupation and achieve a sustainable two-State solution. 

“Israel and a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, viable and sovereign Palestinian State, of which Gaza is an integral part, living side by side in peace and security within secure and recognized borders, on the basis of the pre-1967 lines, with Jerusalem as the capital of both States,” he added.

Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar also spoke ahead of the session to highlight the plight of Israeli hostages, during which he also said countries that had announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state in recent weeks had sabotaged a ceasefire deal with the Hamas terror group.

Britain, France, Canada, and several other countries said they would recognize a Palestinian state in September, some of them unconditionally and some depending on Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“There are countries that acted, also in this building, to pressure Israel instead of Hamas during sensitive days in the negotiations by attacking Israel, campaigning against Israel, and the announcement of a recognition of a virtual Palestinian state,” he said. 

“They gave Hamas free gifts and incentives to continue this war, they directly assassinated the hostage deal and ceasefire.

“Let me be clear, these countries prolonged the war. Hamas is responsible for beginning this war by invading Israel and committing the Oct. 7 atrocities.

“Hamas is also responsible for the continuation of this war by still refusing to release our hostages and lay down its arms. The international pressure must be on Hamas. Anything else only prolongs the war,” he added.


Syrian president and UK national security adviser discuss strengthening ties

Syrian president and UK national security adviser discuss strengthening ties
Updated 05 August 2025
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Syrian president and UK national security adviser discuss strengthening ties

Syrian president and UK national security adviser discuss strengthening ties
  • Meeting in Damascus attended by foreign minister and intelligence director

LONDON: Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the interim president of the Syrian Arab Republic, discussed strengthening ties with the UK during a meeting with National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell in Damascus on Tuesday.

The two sides discussed regional and international developments during a meeting attended by Asaad Al-Shaibani, the minister of foreign affairs and expatriates, and Director of General Intelligence Hussein Al-Salama.

Al-Sharaa emphasized Syria’s willingness to consider sincere initiatives that promote regional security and stability, as long as they respect Syrian sovereignty and independent national decisions, the official SANA news agency reported.


Aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds, armed gangs

Aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds, armed gangs
Updated 05 August 2025
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Aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds, armed gangs

Aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds, armed gangs
  • Thousands of people packed the road around them on Monday as two trucks entered southern Gaza, as shown in AP video

GAZA CITY: Truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza say their work has become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory’s rulers.

Crowds of hungry people routinely rip aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. 

Some trucks are hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza’s markets for exorbitant prices. Israeli troops often shoot into the chaos, they said.

Drivers have been killed in the mayhem.

Since March, when Israel ended a ceasefire in its war with Hamas and halted all imports, the situation has grown increasingly dire in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians. International experts are now warning of a “worst-case scenario of famine” in Gaza.

FASTFACT

Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields.

Under heavy international pressure, Israel last week announced measures to let more aid into Gaza. Though aid groups say it’s still not enough, getting even that amount from the border crossings to the people who need it is difficult and extremely dangerous, the drivers said.

Thousands of people packed the road around them on Monday as two trucks entered southern Gaza, as shown in AP video. 

Young men overwhelmed the trucks, standing on the cabs’ roofs, dangling from the sides, and clambering over each other onto the truck beds to grab boxes even as the trucks slowly kept driving.

“Some of my drivers are scared to go transfer aid because they’re concerned about how they’ll untangle themselves from large crowds of people,” said Abu Khaled Selim, vice president of the Special Transport Association, a nonprofit group that works with private transportation companies across the Gaza Strip and advocates for truck drivers’ rights.

Selim said his nephew, Ashraf Selim, a father of eight, was killed July 29 by a stray bullet when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds climbing onto the aid truck he was driving.

Shifa Hospital officials said they received his body with an apparent gunshot to the head. 

Earlier in the war, aid deliveries were safer because, with more food getting into Gaza, the population was less desperate. Hamas-run police had been seen securing convoys and went after suspected looters and merchants who resold aid at exorbitant prices,

Now, “with the situation unsecured, everything is permissible,” said Selim, who appealed for protection so the aid trucks could reach warehouses.

The UN does not accept protection from Israeli forces, saying it would violate its rules of neutrality, and said that given the urgent need for aid, it would accept that hungry people were going to grab food off the back of the trucks as long as they weren’t violent.

Flooding Gaza with renewed aid would ease the desperation and make things safer for the drivers, said Juliette Touma, communications director at UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Ali Al-Derbashi, 22, had been an aid truck driver for more than a year and a half, but he quit after his last trip three weeks ago due to the increasing danger, he said. Some people taking aid off the trucks are now carrying cleavers, knives, and axes, he said.

He was once ambushed and forcibly redirected to an area designated by Israel as a conflict zone in its war against Hamas. There, everything was stolen, including his truck’s fuel and batteries, and his tires were shot out, he said. He was beaten and his phone was stolen.

“We put our lives in danger for this. We leave our families for two or three days every time. And we don’t even have water or food ourselves,” he said. 

In addition to the danger, the drivers faced humiliation from Israeli forces, he said, who put them through “prolonged searches, unclear instructions, and hours of waiting.”

The war began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to the latest figures by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government.

The threats come from everywhere

Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, said the danger for the drivers comes from everywhere. 

He accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields. 

In recent days, men linked to a violent Gaza clan fired at drivers, injuring one, and looted a convoy of 14 trucks, he said. They later looted a convoy of 10 trucks.

Hossni Al-Sharafi, who runs a trucking company and was an aid driver himself, said he is only allowed to use drivers who have no political affiliation and have been approved by Israel to transport aid from crossings.

Al-Sharafi said he was detained by Israeli forces for more than 10 days last year while transporting aid from the southern Kerem Shalom crossing and interrogated about where the truck was headed and how the aid was being distributed. Israeli officials did not comment on the accusations.

Some drivers spoke of being shot at repeatedly by armed gangs. 

Others said their trucks were routinely picked clean — even of the wooden pallets— by waves of desperate people, many of whom were fighting each other for the food, while Israeli troops were shooting. Hungry families who miss out on the aid throw stones at the trucks in anger.

Anas Rabea said the moment he pulled out of the Zikkim crossing last week, his aid truck was overwhelmed by a crowd.

“Our instructions are to stop, because we don’t want to run anyone over,” he said. 

“It’s crazy. You have people climbing all over the cargo, over the windows. It’s like you’re blind, you can’t see out.”

After the crowd had stripped everything, he drove another few hundred meters and was stopped by an armed gang that threatened to shoot him. They searched the truck and took a bag of flour he had saved for himself, he said.

“Every time we go out, we get robbed,” he said. “It’s getting worse day by day.”

 


Hezbollah rejects timetable for disarmament as Lebanese Cabinet forms plan for arms restrictions

Hezbollah rejects timetable for disarmament as Lebanese Cabinet forms plan for arms restrictions
Updated 05 August 2025
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Hezbollah rejects timetable for disarmament as Lebanese Cabinet forms plan for arms restrictions

Hezbollah rejects timetable for disarmament as Lebanese Cabinet forms plan for arms restrictions
  • Lebanese government tells army to prepare plan for state control of all weapons by end of the year, and present it to ministers this month
  • Secretary-General of Hezbollah Naim Qassem: The state must take steps to ensure protection, not strip its citizens and resistance of their power

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Cabinet met at the Presidential Palace on Tuesday to discuss the most sensitive item on its agenda: the disarming of Hezbollah and the need to restrict control of weaponry to the state.

However, ministers faced pressure from Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem, and his supporters amid external diplomatic counterpressures.

The session, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and attended by President Joseph Aoun, lasted for about five hours, with the proceedings shrouded in secrecy. It concluded with an announcement by Salam that the Cabinet had decided to continue the discussions, and to implement proposals presented by US envoy Tom Barrack, during their next meeting on Thursday. They will also ask the Lebanese army to develop a plan to restrict control of arms to the state by the end of the year, and present it to the Cabinet by the end of this month.

A political observer told Arab News: “Lebanon has received foreign diplomatic calls to refrain from delaying the approval of the arms-restriction clause and setting a timetable for its implementation. Otherwise, Lebanon will be left to its own fate, in the absence of any guarantees that Israel will, in return, withdraw from the positions it still occupies within Lebanese territory.”

Qassem responded to the Cabinet meeting with a vehement speech in which he said: “The state must take steps to ensure protection, not strip its citizens and resistance of their power. The international community cannot intervene merely to demand that Lebanon achieve Israel’s goals.”

Beginning on Tuesday morning, the army carried out security operations on the old Sidon road that separates Beirut’s southern suburbs from the city and its eastern suburbs. Their activities blocked demonstrators who attempted to leave the area on motorcycles during the Cabinet meeting in a show of support for Qassem.

It came as political and security officials intensified coordination in an attempt to contain street protests and prevent any activity they feared might threaten stability.

Beirut has been gripped by anxiety in the past few days, which has affected normally vibrant evening street activity. On Monday night, dozens of Hezbollah-supporting motorcyclists roamed the streets of the capital, chanting “long live Hassan Nasrallah,” the former secretary-general of Hezbollah who was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike on southern Beirut in September last year.

During his speech, Qassem said that “any discussion about Lebanon’s future security must be based on a comprehensive national security strategy, not on timetables aimed at disarming the resistance.”

He rejected the demands that Hezbollah disarm, warning that any attempt to impose such action without broad national agreement would fail.

“The resistance is an integral part of the Lebanese fabric and of the Taif Accord itself,” he said, referring to the 1989 agreement that ended the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.

“Therefore it cannot be treated as a matter subject to a vote, or cancellation by a numerical majority. Rather, it must be discussed through national consensus, out of respect for constitutional and charter principles.”

Ignoring this reality, regardless of international or regional pressures, would “undermine the foundations of stability in Lebanon,” he added

Qassem also said that “the American presence in Lebanon aims to dismantle the power and capabilities of Hezbollah, and Lebanon as a whole,” and the latest, third memorandum on the issue from Barrack, the US envoy, was “worse than the first and second.”

He added: “Among its provisions is the dismantling of 50 percent of Hezbollah’s infrastructure within 30 days, including hand grenades and mortar shells, i.e. weapons considered simple, and these measures should be completed before Israel withdraws from the five remaining points on the border.”

Qassem said that “what Barrack brought is entirely in Israel’s interest” and added: “We cannot adhere to any timetable for dismantling Lebanon’s power that is implemented under the umbrella of Israeli aggression.

“If Israel chooses a large-scale aggression against Lebanon, missiles will fall upon it. All the security that Israel has worked to achieve for eight months will collapse in a single hour.”

He added that if Hezbollah surrendered its weapons, “the aggression will not stop, and this is what Israeli officials are saying. We will not accept being slaves to anyone. To anyone who speaks of concessions under the pretext of halting funding, we ask: what funding is he talking about?

“Prime Minister Nawaf Salam boasts of his commitment to taking measures to liberate all occupied territories, but where are these measures?”

The atmosphere in the 24 hours leading up to the Cabinet meeting was increasingly tense. Pro-Hezbollah activists took to social media to recall the bloody events of May 7, 2008, when the group’s members, wearing black shirts, took to the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon and clashed with supporters of the Future Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party, in an attempt was to overturn a decision by the Lebanese government at the time to confiscate the communications network belonging Hezbollah's Signal Corps, and to dismiss the then commander of Beirut Airport Security, Brig. Gen. Wafiq Shuqair, who was close to Hezbollah.

Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, government ministers from the Amal Movement stressed that they supported efforts to restrict control of weapons to the state. Fadi Makki denied that ministers from Amal and Hezbollah would withdraw from the session, and Hanin Al-Sayyed said she would “vote in favor of restricting Hezbollah’s weapons.”

However, Rakan Nasser Al-Din, a Hezbollah member of the government, said only: “Anything will be done according to its requirements.”

A proposal circulated later on Tuesday stated that Lebanese authorities will “refer the implementation of the arms-control agreement to the Supreme Defense Council, headed by the president of the republic. This referral means assigning the Lebanese army the responsibility of planning and preparing for the implementation phases, as the matter relates to technical military matters. Some weapons need to be destroyed, while others need to be dismantled.”

During a speech on Aug 1., celebrated annually as Lebanese Army Day, President Aoun told the country that “this is a fateful phase and all illusions have fallen. Let us together make a historic decision to authorize the army alone to bear arms and protect the borders for all of us.”


Lebanon tasks army with setting plan to restrict arms to state

Lebanon tasks army with setting plan to restrict arms to state
Updated 05 August 2025
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Lebanon tasks army with setting plan to restrict arms to state

Lebanon tasks army with setting plan to restrict arms to state
  • Salam said the government “tasked the Lebanese army with setting an implementation plan to restrict weapons” to the army
  • The plan is to be presented to the cabinet by the end of August for discussion and approval

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s government on Tuesday tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict arms to the state by year end, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said, an unprecedented move that paves the way for disarming Hezbollah.

After a nearly six-hour cabinet session headed by President Joseph Aoun on disarming the Iran-backed militant group, Salam said the government “tasked the Lebanese army with setting an implementation plan to restrict weapons” to the army and other state forces “before the end of this year.”

The plan is to be presented to the cabinet by the end of August for discussion and approval, he told a press conference after the marathon session.

A November ceasefire deal that sought to end more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah stated that Lebanese government authorities such as the army, security forces and local police are “the exclusive bearers of weapons in Lebanon.”

Salam said the cabinet would continue discussions this week on a proposal from US envoy Tom Barrack that includes a timetable for disarming Hezbollah.

Information Minister Paul Morcos said that the cabinet “set a deadline of the end of the year to consolidate arms in the hands of the Lebanese state.”

He said Hezbollah-affiliated Health Minister Rakan Nassereldine and Environment Minister Tamara Elzein, who is affiliated with its ally the Amal movement, “withdrew from the session because they did not agree with the cabinet decision.”

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem had said a short time earlier, as the cabinet was in session, that “any timetable presented for implementation under... Israeli aggression cannot be agreed to.”

“Whoever looks at the deal Barrack brought doesn’t find an agreement but dictates,” he said, arguing that “it removes the strength and capabilities of Hezbollah and Lebanon entirely.”