Donald Trump (AP)
The Trump administration has approved $230 million in aid for Lebanon’s security forces this week, aiming to support efforts to disarm the formerly powerful group Hezbollah, as per Reuters.A Lebanese source familiar with the decision told Reuters that the package allocates $190 million to the Lebanese Armed Forces and $40 million to the Internal Security Forces.Democratic US congressional aides said the funds were released just before the end of Washington’s fiscal year on September 30. “For a small country like Lebanon, that’s really, really significant,” one aide said. The aid was approved amid Trump’s broader cuts to foreign assistance programs, reflecting his administration’s stated priority of putting “America First” in the allocation of taxpayer dollars.A State Department spokesperson said in an email that US aid supports Lebanese forces “as they work to assert Lebanese sovereignty across the country and fully implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the only viable framework for a durable security arrangement for both Lebanese and Israelis.”Hezbollah has resisted calls to disarm since its devastating war with Israel, yet the group faces mounting pressure from both rival Lebanese factions and Washington to relinquish its weapons. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on August 5, directed the US-backed army to develop a plan to ensure that all weapons across the country would be under the control of security forces by year’s end.The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted after the group launched rockets at northern Israel in support of Hamas, following the October 7 attack in southern Israel that left around 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage to Gaza.The resolution, adopted in August 2006, ended the previous deadly conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Meanwhile, a more recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon, which began a year ago, has severely weakened Hezbollah and left large parts of Lebanon in devastation.By September 2024, the situation had escalated into a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, which continued until November.
