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Since the Israeli aggression stopped on Lebanon on November 27, according to the ceasefire agreement, the weapon file inside and outside the Palestinian camps formed an essential part of the internal discussions at this stage, especially since this thorny file was talking about its solution as part of the discourse of the division of President Joseph Aoun, and the ministerial statement of the current government, in the context of what is known as “exclusive arms in the hands of the state.”
The internal political division in Lebanon over the Palestinian weapon -a division dating back to the stage of the civil war -increases with the announcement of Palestinian factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad their participation during the “war of support” led by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon after the “Al -Aqsa Flood” operation.
The major transformations that occurred in Syria and Lebanon after the fall of the former Syrian regime, the most prominent ally of Hezbollah and some Palestinian factions in Lebanon, and the series of losses incurred by the party and ended with the killing of its Secretary -General Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli raid, the process of restricting weapons in the hands of the Lebanese state with great momentum, in light of accelerated field developments.
Field facts change
After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the Lebanese army received strategic sites that were controlled by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – the General Command, affiliated with the former Syrian regime, at the points of Qasaya and the town of Sultan Yaqoub in the Bekaa region, and this delivery included all weapons, equipment and missiles.
The surrender came in a step that observers linked to the Lebanese army’s efforts to conduct field understandings with some factions as a result of the change in field facts in Lebanon and Syria, in parallel with the handing over of some Palestinian factions required for the Lebanese army.
Discussions about the exclusive weapon in the country accelerated after the missile launch incident towards the occupied territories on March 22 and 28, which, through army intelligence investigations, was shown that the group implemented includes a cell of Palestinians and Lebanese.
Although Hamas denied any connection to the missile launch process, the Supreme Council of Defense headed by the President of the Republic directed a warning to Hamas against the use of Lebanese territory for works that affect national security.
In its meeting, the Lebanese government adopted this declaration, and resulted in a meeting between security leaders and Hamas to inform it of the Lebanese state’s position, and after that Hamas pledged to hand over the accused of firing the missiles to the Lebanese security services, and 3 accused were handed over to the army’s intelligence.
The Lebanese army recently enhanced its security measures at the entrances to the Palestinian camps, by deploying checkpoints and intensifying the presence of its elements. There is a belief that the measures of the Lebanese army and security services in the context of imposing strict control over the entrances to the camps, in preparation for an agreement between the Lebanese state and the Palestinian Authority, leads to Palestinian disarmament in the camps, without entering into a military confrontation with the factions inside the camps.
Abbas’s visit and search for political exits
According to senior Lebanese government sources, who spoke to “Al -Jazeera Net”, the Lebanese government, which is preparing for an upcoming visit to the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the end of May, to Lebanon, will be a top priority to find political exits for this file without entering into clashes with any Palestinian party.
These developments cannot be separated, according to observers, from the continuous American and Israeli conditions related to the protection of Israeli security and the pushing for the stripping of the “axis of resistance” of force elements and influence in conjunction with American -Iranian negotiations on the nuclear file and regional influence arenas.
Lebanese internal parties accuse Hezbollah of allowing the Palestinian factions to use Lebanon an arena for conflict, and to confiscate the Lebanese internal decision during the war phase, and at the head of those parties Lebanese Christian parties such as the Lebanese forces and the battalions, which are considered one of the most prominent internal parties that demand the withdrawal of its weapons and the weapon of the Palestinian forces and factions.
It was also remarkable the position of the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt by making statements about the Palestinian weapon file in Lebanon, stressing the need to limit the weapons in the hands of the Lebanese state, and Jumblatt stressed the importance of disarming all the militias, including the Palestinian weapon outside the camps, noting that this file was pivotal in the 2006 dialogue.
Abbas plan and Lebanese work paper
On the other hand, talking about the Palestinian disarmament file has become linked according to the data with a clear work plan prepared by the Palestinian Authority after visits by Palestinian intelligence chief Majid Faraj to Washington, during which he discussed with officials in the US administration several files, most notably the file of the camps in Lebanon, in addition to a visit by Faraj in the beginning of March 2025 to Beirut, during which he met Lebanese security officials.
Faraj presented during his visit to Beirut, the issue of the camps, confirming the approval of the authority in Ramallah on a plan to disarm the camps in all of Lebanon, and not only in the camps south of the Litani River, and the willingness of power through its presence in Lebanon, to supervise the first stage of the plan.
The plan includes the assumption of elements of the Palestinian National Security Forces security responsibility inside the camps, and to make them the only party with which the Lebanese state is coordinated, to be in place to put a list of a series of decisions related to the social and humanitarian conditions of Palestinian refugees to approve it in the Lebanese government.
In parallel, the Lebanese side, through the Presidency of the Republic, works to prepare an in -depth working paper, especially since the judicial and social aspects take an important space in dealing with the Palestinian presence file in Lebanon, where a specialized committee works to prepare a working paper that simulates conditions and transformations in the population structure in the camps, and the plan includes several stages, the most important of which are:
- Removing the special situation of the camps by integrating them with their Lebanese geographical surroundings, and being directly and fully subject to the Lebanese civil, administrative, judicial and military authorities.
- Cooperation with the main Palestinian factions in order to hand over all wanted persons to the Lebanese authorities, and to conduct quick and fair trials for the accused, in order to remove the negative image of the camps in Lebanon.
Distinguished circumstances
With the plans prepared by the Lebanese state and the Palestinian Authority, the Lebanese political parties are afraid of the difficulty of achieving the goals of plans to disarm and impose the state’s authority on the camps, as a result of field and geographical conditions, and the nature of the distribution of powers in the camps.
From this standpoint, Dr. Muhannad Al -Hajj Ali, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Center for Studies, considers that the withdrawal of the Palestinian weapon from the camps will be dependent on the interaction of the Palestinian factions with the plan, especially in light of the participation of the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah movement in its formulation, given that the latter is not confident for many Palestinian factions and parties in Lebanon, and the nature of political and ideological difference between Fatah and other factions.
According to Hajj Ali, the negotiations between the Lebanese state and the Islamic jihadist currents in the camps are not fruitful, and that these groups are not enthusiastic to deliver weapons in the absence of guarantees required by the groups – which belong to them – regarding those wanted by the Lebanese state; So Hajj Ali puts the army’s procedures at the entrances to the camps as part of pressure on the factions to accept the plan in place.
Al -Hajj Ali sees in his interview with Al -Jazeera Net AThe cooperation of the PLO factions and the Fatah movement after the visit of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Lebanon, may lead to tightening other factions, specifically the Soldiers of the Levant, the Al -Ansar League and other Islamic groups, expressing his fear of armed clashes if they decide to open pressure on these groups to hand over their weapons.
The Fatah movement announced, through its media official in Lebanon, Youssef Al -Zuraiei, that his movement is cooperating to the extreme with the Lebanese state, stressing the refusal of his categorical movement, “to use Lebanon as a platform for any defect that affects its national security.”
According to reports, Abbas will stipulate, on his upcoming visit, in exchange for handing over the weapon of the PLO factions to apply to all armed factions in the camps, for fear of stripping an exclusive opening of weapons.
On the other hand, the representative of the Hamas movement, Ahmed Abdel -Hadi, confirmed that the movement has not yet received any official request from the Lebanese state in this regard, noting that any position in this regard will be inclusive at the Palestinian level, and preserves the sovereignty of Lebanon and its interests, as it takes into account the interest of the Palestinian people.
He referred to the existence of a Palestinian -Palestinian dialogue inside Lebanon, aiming to build a unified vision that addresses various issues, from security and stability in the camps, to humanitarian and social rights.
External umbrella and internal compatibility
At the internal level, the Palestinian weapon file is mixed with the file of Hezbollah’s weapon, especially with the coincidence of American and Israeli pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah in all Lebanese territories, and Israel’s continued assassinations inside the cities of Hamas leaders. Hence, according to observers, this file requires understandings with Hezbollah and the Lebanese forces that revolve in its orbit.
The Palestinian weapon file is receiving extensive international and Arab attention, given that entering into a Lebanese internal workshop to solve it needs comprehensive Arab and regional support, and understandings about the extent of Lebanon’s benefit at the security and social level from withdrawing weapons.
The visits made by the President of the Republic, Joseph Aoun, touched on the countries of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt, due to the importance of Arab support and cover for the procedures of the Lebanese state, especially after the stage of the fall of the former Syrian regime, which played multiple roles in the Palestinian internal conflict in previous stages.
The Palestinian weapon file in Lebanon is awaiting an accurate approach that takes into account the internal and external balances, and a balance between the necessities of sovereignty over the entire Lebanese land, and to give the Palestinians their legitimate rights at the humanitarian and economic level, and the success of any solution requires that it is based on political dialogue under Arab and international sponsorship, to dismantle one of the most complex files in the modern history of Lebanon.
