Lebanon ordered the expulsion of Iran’s newly appointed ambassador on Tuesday, a rare rebuke of Tehran over its backing of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that fired rockets into Israel earlier this month and opened one of the most active fronts in the Middle East war.
Lebanon’s foreign minister, Youssef Rajji, said in a statement that the ministry had withdrawn its approval for Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Mohammad Reza Shibani, and declared him persona non grata. The Iranian ambassador has been ordered to leave the country by the end of the week, Mr. Rajji said.
The offices of Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, and Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they had signed off on the decision. But both officials have turned up their condemnation of Iran and of Hezbollah in the weeks since the group opened a new round of war with Israel, an action that Lebanese officials say was taken at Iran’s behest.
Israel has since then engaged in large-scale bombardment across Lebanon and launched a ground invasion of the country’s south. More than 1,000 people have been killed and more than a million displaced, according to the Lebanese authorities.
The decision to expel the Iranian ambassador capped months of deteriorating relations and diplomatic spats between Iran and Lebanon’s new government, which was formed last year in the wake of the last war between Israel and Hezbollah.
For decades, Tehran has provided the bulk of Hezbollah’s funding and supplied the group with weapons in a bid to establish a forward line of defense along Israel’s northern border. But after the group was severely weakened by the war with Israel, Lebanon’s government moved to curb its influence, setting the stage for a widening rift with Tehran.
The decision to expel the Iranian ambassador has heightened fears of internal strife in Lebanon, which for decades has delicately balanced sectarian power through a fragile agreement that ended the country’s 15-year civil war in 1990. While many in Lebanon — including Christian political parties opposed to Hezbollah — welcomed the move on Tuesday, Hezbollah was swift to condemn it.
Hezbollah called the expulsion a “grave national and strategic mistake” that “opens the door to internal division” and “places the country on a highly dangerous path.” It called on Lebanon’s president and prime minister to reverse the Iranian ambassador’s expulsion.
“This does not, in any way, reflect the true interests of the country,” one Hezbollah lawmaker, Ibrahim Moussawi, said in a television interview. He accused the government of being subject to “external dictates.”
Lebanon’s government has faced sustained pressure from the Trump administration and Israel for more than a year to disarm Hezbollah, as mandated under a cease-fire agreement that ended the last war in November 2024. But after banning the group’s military activities this month, it has placed itself at increasing odds with Hezbollah, which has continued firing rockets into Israel.
Wafiq Safa, a senior Hezbollah official, said on Sunday that the group would compel the government to reverse the ban “regardless of the method.” He stopped short of calling for an immediate escalation, saying that Hezbollah did not intend to bring down the government through street protests. But he warned that a “different agenda” could emerge after the war, adding to growing fears of looming civil instability.
In 2008, Hezbollah briefly seized parts of Beirut after the government moved to dismantle its private telecommunications network, a key part of its military infrastructure.
Israel, which has continued its military campaign in Lebanon while publicly rebuffing Lebanese efforts to enter direct talks to halt the war, welcomed the move by Lebanon’s foreign ministry.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, called the decision a “justified and necessary step” against what he described as Iranian interference in the country.
Dayana Iwaza and Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut.
Euan Ward is a Times reporter covering Lebanon and Syria. He is based in Beirut.
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