The Israeli army’s abduction of Atwi Atwi, an official in Lebanon’s Islamic Group, from the town of Hebbariyeh in southern Lebanon at dawn on Monday was not a routine security incident within the context of border tensions. In its timing and underlying message, the operation appeared closer to a field signal that went beyond the individual target, affecting the Lebanese landscape as a whole at a moment of acute political and security sensitivity.
In a statement, the Israeli army said it found weapons inside the building during Atwi’s arrest, accusing the group of carrying out hostile activities on the northern front. The Islamic Group, for its part, described the incident as a “dangerous escalation” in both method and substance, opening the door to broader questions about the nature of the next phase in southern Lebanon.
The operation comes at a time when Hezbollah is grappling with the repercussions of a war in which it suffered heavy losses, while the Lebanese state—under internal and external pressure—is moving to entrench the principle of exclusive state control over weapons. This path, however, remains fraught with complications, given Hezbollah’s refusal to confine its weapons north of the Litani River and the continued presence of Israeli forces at several points in southern Lebanon.
In this context, a key question emerges: if Hezbollah (Shiite) retreats from the military role it has assumed for years under the banner of “resistance,” are Sunni forces seeking to fill this vacuum under the slogan of “liberating the land”?
This question has gained additional significance following statements by Sunni actors, including the Islamic Tawhid Movement, which stressed that “resistance is a humanitarian act and a natural movement of self-defense,” citing what it described as the state’s inability to compel Israel to abide by the ceasefire agreement.
The Memory of Sunni Weapons
Sunni armed action is not a new phenomenon in Lebanon; rather, it constitutes one chapter in the country’s complex political and military history. Before Hezbollah’s emergence in the 1980s, the Lebanese arena housed several Sunni organizations that were armed and became entangled in the civil war, its regional intersections, and confrontations with Israel.
Among the most prominent of these groups was the Independent Nasserite Movement (al-Murabitoun), founded by Ibrahim Quleilat. The movement took part in the Lebanese civil war and fought Israeli forces during the 1982 invasion of Beirut.
The Islamic Group, in turn, established a military wing known as the “Fajr Forces,” which emerged during the 1982 invasion. The group resurfaced during the July 2006 war and again amid the 2023 Gaza war, when it announced its participation in operations launched from southern Lebanon.
In Sidon, the Popular Nasserite Organization, founded under the leadership of Maarouf Saad, came to prominence and fought Israel during the 1980s. It remains present in the Lebanese political life.
In Tripoli, the Islamic Tawheed Movement was established in 1982 following a split from the Islamic Group, before its military presence ended after confrontations with Syrian forces in the late 1980s.
The Sunni arms landscape also extended to more hardline Islamist groups that emerged in later phases, including the group that clashed with the Lebanese army during the Dinniyeh insurgency in 2000.
The bottom line is that Sunni armed groups were present at critical junctures, but they never evolved into a parallel or dominant military force at the level of the state, as Hezbollah later did.
An Early Warning?
Badi’ Qarhani, adviser to the Paris-based Research Center on Terrorism, notes that armed confrontation with Israel from Lebanese territory was primarily associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization. In comments to Alhurra, he said the Lebanese arena did not witness the emergence of a Sunni Lebanese party as an organized military force playing a central role in this front—except for the Fajr Forces, which “operated in the Sidon area, with activity that was limited geographically and temporally.”
Political analyst Georges Al-Aqouri told Alhurra that “most Sunni forces in earlier stages were either part of, or aligned with, the Palestinian resistance—so much so that one official at Dar al-Fatwa (religious edicts institution) once described the Palestinians as the Sunnis’ army in Lebanon.”
With the adoption of the Taif Agreement in 1989, which ended the Lebanese civil war, provisions were made for the dissolution and disarmament of militias. Hezbollah’s weapons, however, were exempted on the grounds of Israel’s continued occupation of southern Lebanon, ushering a distinct security reality under the banner of “resistance.” That exception later became an entry point for dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts and imposing internal power equations, before the situation shifted following Hezbollah’s recent defeat and the Lebanese army began implementing a government plan to confine weapons to the state.
Conversely, Hamas’s call in December 2023 for Palestinians in Lebanon to join the “Vanguards of the Al-Aqsa Deluge” raised Lebanese concerns, despite the movement’s subsequent affirmation of its respect for Lebanese state sovereignty.
In this context, Hisham Dabboussi, director of the Development Center for Strategic Studies and Human Development, rules out Hamas’s ability to assume a military role as a substitute for Hezbollah. In comments to Alhurra, he said the movement is “engaged in regional political understandings, particularly in its relations with Qatar and Turkey, as well as ongoing arrangements related to the Gaza Strip, including issues concerning the fate of weapons or their neutralization.”
It is worth noting that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, during his recent visit to Beirut, emphasized closing the file of Palestinian weapons both inside and outside the camps. Yet the disarmament process—though initiated by the Lebanese army—continues to face political and security complications.
Absence of Popular Cover
Observers argue that any shift by Lebanon’s Sunnis from political action to armed struggle would require broad popular backing, a supportive regional environment, and a genuine security vacuum—conditions that are currently absent.
The political mood within the Sunni community has undergone a notable shift in recent years, Al-Aqouri says, marked by prioritizing internal stability, reaffirming loyalty to the Lebanese state and its sovereignty, and raising the slogan “Lebanon First,” launched by former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
This shift is evidenced by the absence of “any popular movement demanding the opening of a military front from Lebanon in support of Gaza or otherwise, unlike the demonstrations of the Gamal Abdel Nasser era,” as well as the lack of any actor possessing manpower, equipment, or funding comparable to what Hezbollah once had.
Even the Islamic Group—designated as a terrorist organization by the United States because of its military wing—has, according to Qarhani, “very limited capabilities, confined to moral support, particularly for Hamas, driven by ideological convergence.” He notes that Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri “was among the most prominent supporters of strengthening this wing before his assassination.”
Qarhani adds that most networks that coordinated with Hamas were “exposed and struck” by Israel, suggesting that Atwi’s abduction likely falls within this context.
Dabboussi likewise rules out “the possibility of any Palestinian or Lebanese party playing the role previously assumed by Hezbollah, whether in terms of capabilities or in light of the surrounding political and regional conditions.”
Messages and Realities
In a landscape where regional calculations intersect with field realities, southern Lebanon appears under the microscope of security messaging. The abduction of Atwi, Dabboussi says, carried “a clear message to any party that might consider resuming military action from southern Lebanon.”
Qarhani, for his part, stresses that any military action launched from the south “cannot take place without Hezbollah’s approval,” noting that the party would move to thwart any such attempt to avoid an Israeli response that would directly target it. At the same time, he underscores the Lebanese army’s ability to maintain control, as it does in most areas—excluding the Hezbollah weapons file, which he says, “requires time and an internal political understanding, as well as pressure on Iran to halt any military or financial support aimed at preserving the party’s arsenal,” arguing that “the issue begins in Tehran and ends in Beirut.”
Regardless of political and security complexities, exclusive state control over weapons “is not a negotiable political option,” Al-Aqouri says, but rather “a constitutional obligation that lies at the heart of the concept of the state and the role of the Lebanese army in protecting sovereignty and extending the rule of law across all Lebanese territory.”
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
