Joseph Aoun

Joseph Aoun (born January 10, 1964, Sin el Fil, Lebanon) is the president of Lebanon (2025– ) and was previously the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF; 2017–25). Having overseen the army amid popular unrest in 2019 and during Israel’s invasion in 2024, he is generally considered a neutral and trusted figure within Lebanon’s polarized and sometimes sectarian political system.

Early life and military career

Aoun was born into a Maronite Christian family in Sin el Fil, a northeastern suburb of Beirut. He is not related to Michel Aoun, who also once served as commander of the LAF (1984–88) and as president (2016–22).

He joined the LAF in 1983, at a time during the long Lebanese Civil War in which the LAF was attempting to reassert itself as a stabilizing force for the country. He remained in the army through the end of the civil war and during the reconstruction period and rose gradually through its ranks. He took training courses in the United States on several occasions, including counterterrorism training in 2008.

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In the rank of brigadier general, he was appointed to lead the 9th Infantry Brigade in 2015, which was stationed in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah, a political faction and militia that was formed during the civil war, had been the predominant military force. In 2016 the brigade was deployed to Lebanon’s northeastern border with Syria, whose civil war had recently intensified with the intervention of Russia and the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). After he was appointed as commander in 2017, he led an operation, simultaneously with Hezbollah and the Syrian army, to stave off the advances of ISIS and other militants along the Lebanon-Syria border.

When unrest broke out in Lebanon in October 2019, the LAF under Aoun’s command deployed to ensure security and prevent clashes but largely refrained from confrontations except to clear roads and prevent vandalism. Aoun reportedly told politicians that the military could not prevent a “revolution of the hungry.” The protests dissipated only with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

Israel-Hezbollah war and Joseph Aoun’s presidency

After Michel Aoun completed his term as president in 2022 and left office, political wrangling prevented the country’s parliament from electing a new one. But the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2024 (see Israel-Hezbollah war) left politicians with a new sense of urgency to elect a president who could secure international aid, and Joseph Aoun had both broad backing in Lebanon and from the United States and Saudi Arabia. The conflict with Israel had significantly weakened Hezbollah, and the ceasefire agreement reached in November included a key role for the LAF in securing southern Lebanon, in accordance with United Nations Resolution 1701, making Aoun an important figure to take the helm and ensure the maintenance of the ceasefire. As the ceasefire was being implemented and a new concern for Lebanon’s border was raised by the December 2024 toppling of the Syrian government, Lebanon’s parliament convened in January 2025 to elect Aoun president. In his inaugural speech, in which he promised to rebuild the country and bring militias’ possession of arms under state control, he described his election as “the greatest medal” he could receive. Days later Aoun tasked Nawaf Salam, the top judge at the International Court of Justice, with forming a government as prime minister. Salam’s candidacy, which was opposed by Hezbollah, was backed by the same international backers as Aoun and had a broad range of support in parliament, including among Christian and Sunni Muslim allies of Hezbollah.

Aoun moved to implement a state monopoly over arms, including the confiscation of more than 500 rocket launchers, the destruction of numerous arms depots, and seizure of about 200 tunnels from Hezbollah throughout his first year. He secured agreement in May by the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Mahmoud Abbas, for militias in Palestinian refugee camps to disarm. In August the disarmament of those militias began as some of them handed over weapons to state authorities. Ongoing threats from Israel contributed to the hesitation of other Palestinian militias to disarm, as well as Hezbollah: Israeli forces failed to withdraw fully from southern Lebanon by the February 18 deadline of the ceasefire agreement, they continued to strike targets in Lebanon that they said were part of Hezbollah’s infrastructure, and the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran in June added new security concerns altogether. In late 2025 Aoun announced his readiness to negotiate an agreement to bring Israeli strikes to an end and secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces from its five remaining stations in Lebanon.

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As Aoun prepared to attend an international conference on March 5, 2026, that aimed to secure aid to strengthen the LAF, the United States and Israel struck Iran on February 28, killing its supreme leader Ali Khamenei. After Israel threatened Hezbollah not to take part in the nascent Iran war, the Lebanese militant group nonetheless fired on Israel on March 2. The government promptly moved to outlaw any military activity by Hezbollah and allow the state to arrest anyone involved in those activities. A statement from Aoun reported by Anadolu Agency, a state-run news outlet in Turkey (Türkiye), accused Hezbollah’s strikes of undermining “all the efforts and initiatives the state has undertaken to keep Lebanon away from the dangerous military confrontations taking place in the region.” Meanwhile, Israel intensified its attacks on Lebanon, issuing evacuation orders throughout March that displaced more than 1,100,000 people—nearly one-fifth of the country’s population—and announcing after a ground invasion plans for Israeli forces to occupy Lebanon up to the Litani River. Aoun called for talks to deescalate and, after the United States and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire in April, Israel and Hezbollah agreed on April 16 to pause hostilities for 10 days starting the following morning.