With every national turning point that demands the restoration of Lebanese state sovereignty, Hezbollah reaches for yet another mask. This time, calls for street mobilization have emerged as a thinly veiled response to the upcoming Cabinet session set to discuss the group’s weapons and the extension of state authority across all Lebanese territory. Rather than confronting the issue openly and directly, Hezbollah has chosen to apply indirect pressure on the government and the Lebanese using its familiar playbook: media campaigns, street agitation, and anonymous threats.

From Hassan Alleik, who once urged the closure of the airport road in the name of “the people's pain,” to Qassem Qassir, now warning of popular unrest on behalf of the South, the tactic is clear and repetitive. Outspoken journalists raise their voices, while “Dahiyeh youth” or “Bekaa clans” issue unsigned statements full of threats and insinuations of looming chaos. Meanwhile, Hezbollah maintains its posture in the shadows, feigning detachment and claiming innocence.

But the masquerade no longer fools anyone.

Everyone knows that no movement within Hezbollah’s support base happens without the group’s approval. No statement is released in the name of the “steadfast people of the South” without a green light from its command center. Can it really be coincidence that a “march on Beirut” is being floated at the exact moment the government begins serious discussions about Hezbollah’s arsenal? Is it accidental that such anonymous calls emerge just as the state starts inching toward reclaiming its authority?

No, it is no coincidence.

This is a deliberate strategy designed to intimidate, to stall any sovereign process, to warn that weapons are always waiting in the wings, and to signal that any attempt to challenge the sanctity of the “resistance” will be met with an eruption in the streets. Those eruptions may come with turbans, cameras, or unsigned communiqués, but the message is always the same.

This duplicity is no longer sustainable.

A political party in Parliament, a militia in the South, a media machine on television, and an unacknowledged instigator of “popular anger”: Hezbollah cannot be all these things and still claim to be part of the state. It has instead positioned itself in direct opposition to the very existence of a sovereign Lebanese state.

And when slogans like “the South is coming” are deployed as threats, it is the duty of the state to rise to the occasion. It must not retreat in fear before anonymous pamphlets or a choreographed street mob.

The state has one face.

Hezbollah has many... and every one of them is ugly.