Lebanon's army asks for $3bn but has 'nothing real' so far - Middle East Eye

Nearly two years after the November 2024 cessation of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel, the Lebanese Armed Forces face a growing gap between the responsibilities they have been asked to assume and the international support provided to them.

The army has been tasked with extending state authority across Lebanon, beginning with the area south of the Litani River, while preparing to assume wider responsibilities as the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Unifil, approaches the end of its mandate.

An effort led by France to mobilise international support for the army has so far produced little concrete assistance, according to senior Lebanese government and military sources who spoke to Middle East Eye.

A preparatory meeting held in Paris on 17 September brought together representatives from 17 countries to discuss support for the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces, as well as arrangements for southern Lebanon after Unifil's mandate expires at the end of 2026.

Yet, according to a senior Lebanese government source familiar with the discussions, the meeting produced no significant financial commitment and no timetable for a full donor conference.

“Frankly, nothing actually happened,” the source told MEE. The only tangible assistance, they said, came from Jordan, although members of the Lebanese military delegation viewed the package as relatively modest.

A senior Lebanese military source separately told MEE that the army had received “nothing real” from the meeting.

The discrepancy between the scale of the army's needs and the assistance being offered is becoming increasingly important as international governments press Lebanon to extend state authority and bring weapons under the control of official institutions rather than armed groups like Hezbollah.

Documents verified by MEE show that the army itself estimates that its short- and medium-term requirements will cost approximately $3bn.

A 21-page presentation prepared by the Lebanese army for the international preparatory conference held in Cairo in February set out an extensive five-year programme for the institution.

The document describes an army facing simultaneous political, financial, security and operational pressures.

Among the risks it identifies are the country's economic crisis, a shrinking defence budget, dependence on foreign military assistance, declining donor support, cross-border attacks, terrorism and the possible consequences of a reduced international presence in Lebanon. 

It also identifies personnel and readiness problems, including declining salaries, loss of skilled personnel, difficulties retaining talent, cyber threats, information warfare and an expanding list of missions.

The army says it is being asked to perform tasks including border operations, counterterrorism, disarmament, internal security and humanitarian response, creating what it describes as a problem of “mission overstretch”.

The presentation identifies four strategic pillars: consolidating state security and border control, restructuring and modernising the army, strengthening national resilience and crisis response, and improving human-resource capacity.

The short- and medium-term programme places particular emphasis on southern Lebanon.

The army wants to establish stability in the south, assume additional responsibilities currently performed by Unifil, strengthen border control and eventually take over border-defence responsibilities following the end of the UN mission's mandate.

The plan also envisages expanding border control along the Lebanese-Syrian frontier and assuming responsibilities linked to maritime security.

The financial requirement for these priorities is approximately $3bn, according to the document.

The budget allocations include around $1.09bn for enhanced combat readiness, $654m for critical capabilities, $364m for salaries and incentives, $334m for assuming responsibilities related to the Unifil Maritime Task Force, $193m for extending border control towards Syria and $150m for border defence after the Unifil mandate ends.

The army's many challenges include salaries, healthcare, personnel retention, intelligence, command and control, communications, force protection, strategic communications and crisis-response capabilities.

The presentation shows the extent of the personnel crisis: current readiness was put at 75 percent in 2026, compared with a stated requirement for full readiness. It also compares military salaries with the cost of living for individuals and families.

The document makes clear that the army's institutional role cannot be separated from Lebanon's political struggle over weapons.

Among its strategic objectives is the “monopoly of arms”, with the presentation explicitly calling for the use of arms to be confined to official institutions.

That objective - and the related presence of the heavily armed Hezbollah - has become increasingly central to international discussions over assistance to Lebanon.

At the Cairo preparatory meeting, participants publicly reaffirmed their intention to mobilise financial and technical resources to help the Lebanese state extend its authority across its territory. Egypt's foreign ministry said the ultimate objective was to enable the state to establish a monopoly over weapons.

The army's presentation, however, makes clear that achieving that objective requires a much more capable institution.

Its argument is effectively that it cannot simply be asked to assume greater territorial and security responsibilities without the personnel, funding, infrastructure and capabilities required to carry them out.

The pressure on the army intensified after the November 2024 cessation of hostilities.

The agreement envisaged the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces alongside the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and stipulated that only official Lebanese state personnel could carry arms south of the Litani.

In August 2025, Lebanon's government formally tasked the army with implementing a plan to extend state authority and restrict weapons to official institutions.

In January 2026, the army announced that it had achieved the objectives of the first phase of that plan in the South Litani Sector, while making clear that its assessment excluded areas and positions remaining under Israeli occupation.

It also said unexploded ordnance, tunnels and other outstanding issues remained and that Israeli military activity and restricted access were hindering the completion of its tasks.

That first phase was therefore presented by the army as a significant step, but not the completion of its wider mission.

The next challenge is considerably larger: extending the state's authority north of the Litani and eventually across the whole country.

That requires more resources at precisely the moment when international donors are increasingly questioning whether the Lebanese state and its armed forces are prepared to confront Hezbollah over its weapons.

The Cairo meeting in February was supposed to lead to a high-level conference in Paris the next month.

The European Union had indicated that it was prepared to provide €100m for the Lebanese army, primarily for logistical equipment.

But on 1 March, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the Paris conference would be postponed because the conditions required to hold it were no longer present.

The following day, as Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel, the Lebanese government banned military and security activity by Hezbollah outside official institutions and instructed the army to begin implementing its disarmament plan north of the Litani.

The renewed war effectively transformed the political and security environment in which the conference was supposed to take place.

The army was now being asked to do more, while its international support mechanism had been put on hold. The September meeting in Paris was intended to revive that process. 

France has sought to maintain a central role in supporting Lebanon and preparing for the post-Unifil environment.

Jordan has also become increasingly concerned about the regional consequences of instability, particularly regarding developments in Syria and the West Bank, according to the senior Lebanese government source.

The public messaging from Paris was more positive than the private assessment offered by Lebanese officials.

Macron said the meeting was aimed at strengthening Lebanese sovereignty and enabling the state to ensure its own security. Aoun expressed satisfaction with the discussions and called for international support for the army and security forces.

The United States also participated. US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa described the meeting as an opportunity to coordinate international support for the Lebanese military.

But the senior Lebanese government source said that “the meeting did not result in a commitment to provide the army with the resources it has requested”.

“There was also no agreed timetable for the full donor conference.”

The source described the presence of the major international players - including the US and Saudi Arabia - as one of the few positive outcomes.

But in substance, he said, “there was no immediate financial pledge and no framework for when the main conference would take place”.

A senior Lebanese military source offered a similar assessment. “France wants to preserve a significant role in Lebanon and genuinely wants to support the army, but countries with greater financial capacity remain reluctant,” the source told MEE.

According to the senior Lebanese government source, “Saudi Arabia is hesitant because it believes the Lebanese army has not fulfilled all the responsibilities expected of it regarding Hezbollah”.

Washington, the source said, “has similar concerns, while also being occupied by other regional priorities”.

The result leaves the Lebanese army facing a difficult equation.

The international community is asking it to expand its presence, secure the country's borders, prepare for the end of Unifil's mission and establish the state's exclusive authority over weapons.

The army's own assessment is that doing these things will require billions of dollars and a major institutional transformation.

But the countries capable of providing substantial financial support increasingly appear to be treating that assistance as part of a broader political equation.

For France, the issue is also about preserving its influence in Lebanon and avoiding a security vacuum in the south once Unifil leaves.

For Lebanon, it is about whether the army can acquire the capacity to implement a policy that increasingly places it at the centre of the country's confrontation with Hezbollah.

And for Washington and Riyadh, according to the Lebanese officials who spoke to MEE, the question is increasingly whether additional resources will produce the political and security outcome they expect.

The army's Cairo presentation anticipated much of this. It did not simply ask donors for new vehicles, equipment or salaries. It laid out a five-year transformation, with an estimated bill for the initial phases of around $3bn.

Seven months after that request, the international process has yet to produce a comparable commitment.

With Unifil's mandate due to expire at the end of this year, the gap between what Lebanon's army is being asked to do and what international governments are prepared to finance is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.