My phone lit up with a breaking news alert: Hezbollah had fired six missiles toward Israel. Instinct took over. I called my brother to check on our parents in Beirut. Seconds later, he sent a photo from my parents’ balcony, a column of smoke rising from the first Israeli strike on the southern suburbs. I told myself this was the worst it could get, then the next message landed: my parents had fled their home in pajamas in the middle of the night, racing the clock before a second strike. That is what Hezbollah’s so-called heroism buys ordinary people: panic, displacement, and the stripping away of basic dignity. War was no longer a headline I covered or analyzed. It was visible from a family living room, counting down between blasts.
And it did not just hit buildings, it hit futures. I came to the United States on the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship to sharpen my skills in public service and communication and to bring something practical and lasting back to Lebanon. Hezbollah’s decision to ignite a front it does not pay for, and that civilians cannot escape, snapped that plan in half. I cut my program and returned home because my duty was suddenly not a resume line; it was a toddler who needed calm, a wife who needed support, and parents who should never have to run at night to stay alive. This is the militia’s real power: not “resistance,” but veto power over normal life. Even when you try to build distance from Hezbollah’s wars, it has a way of dragging you back, pulling families and countries into the same cycle, again and again, with no exit strategy and no accountability.
Many Lebanese support Hezbollah because they fear Israel, distrust the state, or remember past invasions. Those fears do not justify an armed party taking unilateral decisions that bring war to civilians. Lebanon is being pulled into war by an armed party acting outside the state. This scenario is not unique; it’s our daily dilemma.
In previous wars, many Lebanese believed distance might protect them, that destruction would remain confined to certain regions or political camps. That illusion is gone. There will be no safe south, even for those who have long opposed Hezbollah and rejected its authority over their lives.
For years, Hezbollah justified its arsenal under the banner of defending Lebanon and supporting Palestine. But that narrative has steadily collapsed under the weight of reality. Resistance became rhetoric, rhetoric became political capital, and political capital became control over an entire country’s fate. Lebanon was never consulted before being pulled once more into war. Lebanon’s institutions did not authorize this war, and Hezbollah’s military decisions bypass the state.
What is unfolding today does not reflect a national decision. It reflects the priorities of a regional power struggle in which Lebanese civilians are treated as expendable. Whether directed openly from Tehran or driven by a leadership seeking to recover lost influence, the result is the same: an armed organization making irreversible decisions on behalf of millions who neither voted for war nor want it.
The truth is visible on Lebanon’s highways. Thousands of families are fleeing the south in the middle of the night. Children carried, half asleep; elderly parents squeezed into overcrowded cars; mothers searching for fuel and shelter as traffic stretches for miles. Cold weather, blocked roads, panic, exhaustion. These scenes reveal more than any speech ever could.
While civilians flee bombardment, Hezbollah speaks the language of victory and sacrifice. Yet the sacrifice is never shared equally. Ordinary people lose homes, stability, and safety, while political and military leaders remain insulated from the consequences of the conflicts they initiate.
Lebanon today is not defending itself. It is paying the price for decisions made outside state institutions and beyond democratic accountability. A country already weakened by economic collapse and political paralysis cannot survive recurring wars imposed without consent.
Calling this resistance no longer reflects reality. When an armed faction repeatedly drags its own population into devastation against its will, loyalty to ideology replaces loyalty to country. In doing so, Hezbollah has not protected Lebanon. It has betrayed it.
Hezbollah is an armed militia that has controlled Lebanese lives by force since its founding, pulling the country into repeated wars, deciding the fate of an entire people without a mandate, without accountability, and with no regard for civilian life.
This militia did not stop at external wars. Inside Lebanon, it used assassination to silence opposing voices. Writers, journalists, politicians, and activists have paid with their lives for a stance or an opinion the party did not accept. Those who disagree are branded as traitors. Those who criticize are threatened. Those who confront are removed. This is not national defense. It is ruled by weapons and fear.
It’s time for the official Lebanon, Lebanon the state, the government, the presidency, the parliament, to stand for its people. On March 2, 2026, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced that Lebanon would ban Hezbollah’s military and security activities. That is the right direction, because it states a basic rule: decisions of war and peace belong to the state, not an armed party.
Now Lebanon’s leaders should follow through with steps they can actually enforce: a clear order that no armed group may launch attacks from Lebanese territory, a plan for the army and security services to apply that order, and political consequences for anyone in government who shields armed action outside the state. Without that, Lebanese civilians will keep paying for wars they did not choose.
