It was on August 5 that the Lebanese government, under pressure from the US as well as from Israeli strikes, ordered the military to draw up plans to disarm all independent militias, including that of the Hezbollah organization, by the end of the year.

​It took a full month, but at a cabinet meeting on September 5 army chief Rodolphe Haykal presented the government with a plan to ensure that, by the year’s end, weapons would be held only by the Lebanese state.  ​The cabinet authorized the army ​to begin implementing it immediately​.

Following the cabinet meeting, in an address to journalists Lebanese ​information ​minister Paul Morcos ​said that the details of the army’s plan to disarm militias, including Hezbollah, would remain secret​.  The cabinet​, he said, had decided to keep the specifics of the plan confidential​ but that implementation would proceed according to the army’s material and logistical capacities.

A few days later Lebanon’s foreign minister, Youssef Raggi, ​again without disclosing details of the plan, ​declared that within three months the army will have fully disarmed Hezbollah in the area nearest the border with Israel – namely the region south of the Litani river.

​Despite all the emphasis on keeping the plan secret, a great deal of detail has subsequently become public knowledge – either​ unintentionally, or by way of ​deliberate leaks. ​ Through various briefings and via press coverage it slowly emerged that the a​rmy’s plan is called “Homeland Shield”, and that its objective is to confiscate Hezbollah’s weapons in five phases.​  The first phase begins south of the Litani River, and the second includes the area south of the Awali River.

Subsequently even more precise details........

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